PowerShell原来的开发代号是Monad,原计划是用以替代Windows中的命令行工具,但是后来微软说它只是技术上的扩充.使用PowerShell,管理员可以做任何在图形界面下所做的事情.Windows PowerShell includes:
- One hundred and twenty-nine command-line tools (called "cmdlets") for performing common system administration tasks, such as managing services, processes, event logs, certificates, the registry, and using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
- Command-line tools are easy to learn and easy to use with standard naming conventions and common parameters, and simple tools for sorting, filtering, and formatting data and objects.
- Support for existing scripting languages and existing command-line tools, and multiple versions of Windows, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server code name "Longhorn".
- Feature that allows users to navigate data stores, like the registry and certificate stores, as if they were a file system.
- Standard utilities for managing Windows data in different stores and formats, including Active Directory (ADSI), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Component Object Model (COM) objects, Active X Data Objects (ADO), HTML and XML.
- Sophisticated expression parsing and .NET object manipulation at the command line, including pipelining of objects, make IT professionals more efficient and productive.
- Extensible interface that allows independent software vendors and enterprise developers to build custom cmdlets to meet their unique application and system administration requirements.

