PowerShell now comes with an Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) module that introduces over 75 Active Directory cmdlets. From a script or the new Graphical PowerShell user interface, you can perform routine administrative tasks on your Active Directory forests, domains, trees and so on.

Best of all, the tab-completion function (where Windows thinks about what you're typing and suggests completions for your current context when you hit the Tab key) works as you'd expect and is a useful feature.

Here are some common commands:

* To load the AD DS module, use Add-Module ActiveDirectory, then Get-Module

* To get information about a domain, use Get-ADDomain domain_name