Windows PowerShell and the SharePoint Management Shell
If you’re an expert at this then you’re ahead of me here. My new install of Server 2008 R2 includes a Windows PowerShell (WPS) and my SharePoint install includes a SharePoint Management Shell (SMS).
I found this on MSDN where they explain that SMS is just WPS with the SharePoint PowerShell snap-in added. Also, this is part of the move away from the Shared Service Provider to a more generic Service Application Framework that will support all of Office 14. Here, we can see that Microsoft claims this approach will improve development, integration, load balancing, authentication and back-up\restore.
There’s also a discussion of the PowerShell and SharePoint Foundation here where you’ll find links to the beginner guides for WPS.
I also found the help file for the SMS Cmdlets here. This page is labeled for the Search Server 2010 Express but the SharePoint 2010 Beta commands are included in the third of the three help files listed.
Finally, our new best friend David explains here that cmdlets can be written into a .psl file and run from the PS> prompt as well as where to find your $profile so you can add the SharePoint cmdlets into your generic PowerShell environment.
-robot
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