PowerShell is a cross-platform command-line interface, but it's only a great tool if you know what commands to run. In this guide, I will outline the top 15 cmdlets that everyone should use to ...

Get-Basics PowerShell uses a consistent syntax for all of its commands — in fact, PowerShell commands are actually called cmdlets, because they’re much more than simple DOS-style actions.

A script is a collection of those commands in a .ps1 file. A .ps1 file contains a script executed by PowerShell, such as the basic Get-Help command.

Don't just stick with the commands that Microsoft provides -- extend the commands in PowerShell.

Figure 2. PowerShell can display basic operating system information. Incidentally, the Get-CimInstance cmdlet can display far more operating system information than what we are using here.

Windows PowerShell has become an essential command-line tool for system administrators and advanced users.