CMD has been around for decades, but PowerShell has become a more efficient tool for managing Microsoft products. The PowerShell cmdlets in this ebook will enable you to knock out tasks you used to handle via the command line.

From the ebook:

When Microsoft developed PowerShell (PS) in November 2006, the aim was to marry a command-line based interface and a scripting language to handle task automation and configuration management of native Microsoft applications. Through the years it has seen upgrades that increase its functionality, with more cmdlets (PS commands) and more support through importing modules to grant the framework greater flexibility in managing a variety of services.

As PowerShell’s popularity has increased, its adoption rate has fueled further changes. Arguably the largest and most recent of these was Microsoft’s decision to make PS open source, porting it to various Linux distributions and macOS and enabling cross-platform support through one unified shell. What does this mean for non-PowerShell users? Simply put, PS is poised to not only replace the venerable command line that Windows admins know—but as organizations grow their user base with Linux and macOS-based devices, admins can port that knowledge over to managing those devices as well, all from one console or shell.

For those who support Windows-only organizations, Microsoft has made inroads into PS-based management by ensuring that much of its higher-level software, such as Windows Server, Active Directory, and Exchange, will be 100% manageable only through PowerShell. Users managing services through the GUI or admin consoles won’t be able to fully configure every aspect of the application unless they switch to PowerShell. So here are some commonly used commands you may find are part of your daily admin tasks—and the PS equivalent—to help you migrate your usage over to PowerShell.