Part 2. Working with people
PowerShell is an automation engine for Windows administration. In part 1, we learned how that engine worked. In parts 2 and 3, we put that engine to work and get the best out of it by using the toolkit we’ve put together. Part 2, chapters 5-7, covers people-related activities. The servers that we need to administer are covered in part 3.
A lot of administration revolves around people. We need to create and manage their user accounts so they can log on to the systems. They have mailboxes that need to be administered. The desktop systems they use need to be configured and maintained. Chapter 5 will show how to work with user accounts in Active Directory and locally. The time we spent with ADSI and .NET in chapter 3 pays dividends here. Mail access implies Exchange Server 2007 in this case. Chapter 6 is where we dive into administering mailboxes. There’s some overlap with user accounts. We’ll examine the interactions and provide some best practice guidelines.