More great cmdlets from our partners. Quest Software, known for its ActiveRoles Server and PowerGUI, is offering its new Active Directory cmdlets to the community free of charge.

The ZIP file includes a Setup.exe executable that registers the PsSnapin and adds it to a custom console. To open the console, click:  Start | All Programs | Quest Software | ActiveRoles Server | ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory (beta).

Quest graciously used a “QAD” prefix on their nouns, instead of “AD” to leave room for “official” Active Directory cmdlets.

To find them in PowerShell, type: 

            get-command -pssnapin quest*

            -or-

            get-command *qad*

Cmdlets are:

• Get-QADUser
• Set-QADUser
• New-QADUser
• New-QADGroup
• Add-QADGroupMember
• Remove-QADGroupMember
• Connect-QADService
• Disconnect-QADService

The download site also offers documentation for the cmdlets with some handy examples.

(Just FYI, the examples use a $pwd variable to store passwords. If you use this variable name, it overwrites the $pwd automatic variable that stores the path to the current directory.)