Using PowerShell to Manage Groups, Part 1

PowerShell is gathering a great deal of importance in the Windows administration landscape now that Microsoft has decided to include PowerShell as a part of the base Windows OS, starting with Windows Server 2008. And if you're an Exchange Server administrator, you can bet that PowerShell is on your horizon. New to Exchange 2007 is the Exchange Management Shell (EMS), a collection of more than 370 commands that deal with Exchange objects. This new scripting functionality delivers a huge amount of potential for automating common administrative operations in Windows and particularly in Exchange.

One of the greatest aspects of Exchange 2007, therefore, is that you can now use PowerShell commands to create, edit, populate, and delete both standard and dynamic groups. Of course, you can continue to use the Exchange Management Console to work with groups, but sometimes it's just more convenient to use shell commands, as you'll see. Let's take a look at how PowerShell can simplify your management of groups in both Windows and Exchange. . . .