At the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2003, Microsoft announced a new scripting solution code-named Monad. Monad will provide a new hybrid command shell and scripting language known currently as Microsoft Shell (MSH). As with most code-named solutions, MSH will probably be replaced by another name when the shell and language are released. Although Microsoft isn't anywhere near shipping MSH, the new tool looks like it should have a significant impact on administrators in the next few years.
Even at first glance, the early MSH beta is strikingly superior to cmd.exe as a tool. MSH is a stream-oriented shell that draws its syntax and concepts from sources as diverse as Korn shell (ksh), the VMS Digital Command Language (DCL), and even SQL (for queries). Its provider framework extends the standard navigation commands for a file system to complex structures such as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Microsoft Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI), and the registry. Currently, MSH runs in a console shell, but don't let that mislead you into thinking that MSH is just another text-processing shell. MSH uses a console right now because complete support for Telnet access is a design goal; what you see on screen is a representation of full-featured Windows .NET Framework objects passed through a pipeline. . . .
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