The scripting language PowerShell introduced in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 provides rich access to the above mentioned systems and later platforms, including access to security settings. Experienced Systems Administrators use PowerShell to develop management tools that are specific to their environment, hence, allowing them to tackle specific issues that may be unique to their organizations.
In some cases, where PowerShell is used to investigate or manipulate security related details, you need elevated privileges such as using a domain or local administrator to be able to complete your tasks.
The main elements of PowerShell are:
- PowerShell is based on .NET.
- Commands in PowerShell are called cmdlets, and have a consistent verb-noun syntax.
- Like all scripting environments, PowerShell supports piping output from one command to another. But unlike other scripting environments, PowerShell pipes objects not text. This allows for very rich data processing, filtering and analysis.
The following example pipes Process objects from get-process to format-table:
Get-Process | Format-Table
For instance, to stop all running Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe) processes use:
Get-Process –name iexplore | Stop-Process
In the above example the Process objects, one for each Internet Explorer instance, are sent to a cmdlet that calls the Stop method on a Process object.
For more information about PowerShell, go here – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/
