PowerShell originally was planned as a part of Windows Vista. Now, it seems it might be available even before Vista since RC2 is already available. I’ve read many marvellous things about Microsoft’s new command line shell. Some say that even Unix admins will get envious. This remains to be seen, though.

But one thing is clear. The command line will be more important for Windows administrators in the future. Take Exchange 2007, as an example. Exchange Server 2007 will leverage Windows PowerShell to provide improved command line automation. This doesn’t mean that Exchange won’t have a graphical user interface, of course. It only means that you can also manage Exchange with command line tools.

This will improve the flexibility since you can now perform many tasks faster than before. For instance, you could move mailboxes which haven’t been accessed for some months to another Exchange Server on the command line within minutes what usually take a quite sometime with the GUI.

If you are one of the Windows administrators who always preferred clicking instead of typing (like me), it might be time for a change and have look at PowerShell now. You can also check out the PowerShell blog for more information. There is a lively discussion going on.

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