Windows System Administrators have long used scripting to automate routine administrative tasks such as adding new users to Active Directory or mapping network drives. Over the years Microsoft has expanded the toolset for adminstrative scripting to include Windows Scripting Host, WMI and ADSI. Now in late 2006 Microsoft recently released a new scripting environment, Powershell, with a new built-in scripting language that is fully integrated with the .NET Framework. In the words of WindowsITPro Magazine "Unix administrators won't be laughing anymore." Powershell lets administrators string together lots of little commands to create complex commands via a process labeled as composition. Powershell also supports pipelining which sends the output of one command to the next command. Powershell is completely object oriented and all of its commands return objects, not text strings. The Powershell environment (an enhanced version of cmd.exe) includes a raft of built-in cmdlets which replicate and expand the functionality of familiar DOS commands. In addition, any administrator (or third party developer) can design and build additional cmdlets to augment the built-in collection. This class will give you a solid overview of the capabilities of Powershell so that you can begin using it immediately to save time and effort on any repetitive administrative task.