PowerShell for Exchange and SharePoint

Power Package

Article from ADMIN 04/2011

By Thomas Joos

Microsoft offers PowerShell extensions for Exchange and SharePoint to let administrators manage these server products at the command line. In fact, some settings can only be implemented in the PowerShell extension.

Using PowerShell isn't all that complex. You can just type get-command to list the available commands. Very few administrators will be familiar with the full set of command-lets (cmdlets) and options that Exchange Server 2010 provides, but the management shell has a comprehensive help function to get more information.

If you can remember part of the command, you can use the * wildcard. For example, get-command *mailbox gives you a complete list of cmdlets that end in "mailbox." If the command you are looking for isn't part of the list, you can also use multiple placeholders (e.g., get-command *mailbox*), which lists all commands in which the word "mailbox" occurs.

Calling for Help

Once you have found the required cmdlets, PowerShell will support you with more options. For just about any cmdlet, you can assume that four variants exist: Cmdlets that start with the new- prefix are used to create something (e.g., new-mailbox). Deletions are done with remove- (e.g., remove-mailbox), the set- prefix modifies an object (e.g., set-mailbox), and the get- prefix retrieves a value (e.g., get-mailbox).

Of course, you can use many other cmdlets besides these – for example, start and stop or import and export. If you just enter the cmdlet, either nothing happens or you are asked to identify the object. For example, the get-mailbox cmdlet lists all mailboxes in an organization. The help cmdlet command displays help text for a specific cmdlet.

A help cmdlet -detailed option exists for many cmdlets, and it displays more detailed information. The combination help cmdlet -examples lists usage examples for the command

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