Hey Windows PowerShell fans – there's a free set of PowerShell cmdlets to perform administrative tasks within Active Directory (AD). Unfortunately, there are currently only eight cmdlets but more are supposed to be eventually added.
Quest Software is offering the cmdlets, but you don't need any Quest software to use them. You just need to download ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory beta 1 and install it on a machine running Windows XP SP2, Windows 2003 SP1, or later; Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0; and Microsoft Windows PowerShell 1.0.
The cmdlets execute directly against AD through a domain controller (DC) you specify. (If you happen to have Quest Software's ActiveRoles Server, you use that product's -proxy switch to execute the command against ActiveRoles Server.)
You can download the free cmdlets at http://www.quest.com/activeroles_server/arms.aspx. Not surprisingly, the download requires free registration. What is a bit surprising is that you can't use a free email address, such as gmail.com or yahoo.com.
Quest Software also offers PowerGUI, a free GUI for PowerShell called PowerGUI. You can download PowerGUI, which has the same requirements as ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory, at http://powergui.org.