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Added by Mike Pfeiffer September 15, 2011

Just like Exchange 2007, the Exchange 2010 management console (EMC) is completely built on PowerShell. Everything you do in the graphical console, such as viewing the properties of a mailbox, or creating a distribution group, is being carried out in the background by PowerShell commands. Fortunately, EMC exposes most of this information, and you can use it as a tool to learn PowerShell.

The first thing you'll want to take a look at is the command log. Open EMC, highlight any item in the left hand column in the console tree, and select the View menu. Next, click on the option that says 'View Exchange Management Shell Log':

What you'll see next will be similar to the following screenshot:

In this example, we're viewing details for the latest execution of the New-Mailbox cmdlet. In addition, every other command that has been invoked since the EMC has been running is logged within this screen. Command logging is enabled by default, and will record the last 2,048 commands generated by EMC.

Another thing that is new in Exchange 2010 is the Command Button. You'll see this when viewing the properties of an object in EMC:

In this case I've modified the Title and Company properties for this mailbox. Notice that in icon the lower left hand corner, this is the EMC Command Button. It will be greyed out by default, but if you change something, before you hit 'Apply' or 'Ok', you can click on this button and preview the command that Exchange will use to make the change:

In addition to EMC Command Logging and the Command Button, you can still copy commands from the end of most wizards. For example, when creating a new mailbox you'll go through a wizard in EMC, and on the last screen, you'll be able to preview the command syntax, and click Ctrl+C to copy the command to your clipboard.