New ways to do old things
Networking IT pros in the Windows Server space have been using a number of console applications to perform basic diagnostics for decades. Tools such as Ipconfig, Tracert, and NSlookup are used by IT pros all over the world. The network shell (netsh) is another veritable Swiss Army Knife set of tools to configure and manage Windows networking components.
PowerShell implements a number of cmdlets that do some of the tasks that older Win32 console applications provided. Cmdlets, such as Get-NetIPConfiguration and Resolve-DnsName, are newer alternatives to ipconfig.exe and nslookup.exe.
These cmdlets also add useful functionality. For example, using Test-NetConnection enables you to check whether a host that might block ICMP is supporting inbound traffic on a particular port. ping.exe only uses ICMP, which may be blocked somewhere in the path to the server.
One administrative benefit of using cmdlets rather than older console applications relates to remoting security....
