Windows Powershell from Microsoft (free)

[Carol Haynes]

Overview
Windows PowerShell is a new task-based command line shell and intuitive scripting language for system administration that provides comprehensive control and automation for Windows administrators. Windows PowerShell makes administrators more productive by improving the manageability of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows. Exchange Server 2007 and System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Microsoft Operations Manager “V3”) will be built upon Windows PowerShell.
The key features of Windows PowerShell include:


    * One hundred and twenty nine standard utilities (called "cmdlets") for completing common system administration tasks such as working with the registry, services, processes, Windows Management Instrumentation, event logs, etc..

    * Intuitive, task-based scripting language and support for existing scripts and command line tools..

    * Designed for consistency so all tools and system data stores follow a common syntax, common naming conventions and information can be easily shared/piped between tools.

    * Simplified command-based navigation of the operating system (including drives, startup files, and registry).

    * Powerful object manipulation capabilities (objects can be directly manipulated or pipelined to other tools or databases).

    * Designed for extensibility so that independent software vendors and enterprise developers can easily build custom tools and utilities to administer their software.

Free download here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2B0BBFCD-0797-4083-A817-5E6A054A85C9&displaylang=en

this is the 32 bit version but there is a 64 bit link at the bottom.

The documentation pack is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B4720B00-9A66-430F-BD56-EC48BFCA154F&displaylang=en

[Carol Haynes]

I can't believe there was no follow up to this. Anyone else tried it? It looks really powerful but will need a little learning.

[mouser]

sure sounds interesting.. i'll take a look.  though i dont do much shell scripting stuff on windows.

Read the Powershell Blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/

And official home page of it:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/default.mspx

[housetier]

My roomy has been trying it. Maybe I can get an interview of sorts from him.

There are neat ideas; it will have an impact on other (opensource) shells for sure. I haven't worked with it myself so I won't rate it, but I hope it is good; Might as well be the one thing they did right the past 10 years.

[f0dder]

I guess I should have a look; cmd.exe does pretty much what I need most of the time, though. But if PSH is resizable vertically, that might be reason enough to use it - if it's still fullscreen-able.