9. Windows PowerShell
Originally scheduled to ship separately from Longhorn Server, Microsoft's new command line and scripting environment is included in Beta 3 and will ship in the final product. (Users of Windows XP, Vista, and 2003 can download PowerShell for free from the Microsoft Web site.) PowerShell is a complex but technically impressive environment, with support for discoverable .NET-based objects, properties, and methods. It provides all of the power of UNIX command line environments with none of the inconsistencies. The issue, of course, is whether Windows-based administers will flock to a high-end command line interface. Though Beta 3 doesn't ship with any Longhorn-specific PowerShell commandlets--fully contained scripts that can be executed from the command line--it does include thorough documentation. Microsoft tells me it will ship Longhorn commandlets over time, and it expects a healthy community to quickly evolve as well.