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The Exchange Management Shell Banner

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When we introduced the Exchange Management Shell with Exchange 2007, we included a banner every time the shell opens. This is what the banner looks like:

The top part of the banner includes common commands that should make your life easier if you're brand new to the shell. Commands to discover cmdlets, find help, read the Exchange Team blog, and so on. The bottom part of the banner includes a "Tip of the Day". Tips are usually short and contain examples of command syntax or how to take a complex task and turn it into a simple one-liner.

While we've included the banner with both Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010, we've never actually received any feedback about whether people actually like it, use it, or if it even just gets in their way. So, this is your opportunity to let us (well, us being me since I own this bit of the product :) know whether you find it valuable. What can we do to improve either the top banner or the Tip of the Day, or both? Are there other often-used command examples that should be displayed in the top banner (keeping in mind that if we add something, an existing command likely needs to go due to space issues)? Are the commands in the Tip of the Day relevant to you? What types of tips do you wish you would see more of?  Most importantly, have you ever discovered a command or way to do something via a Tip of the Day that you didn't know before? I want to know!

Please use the comments to leave any feedback you might have. Alternately, you can use the "Email Blog Author" link to the right to send me a message directly.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    hi Immanuel. No, the banner and Tip of the Day calls are hard-coded into the scripts that run when the shell is opened. Can you give some examples of why you'd want to suppress the banner/ToD when the shell opens?

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2011
    Is there any way to supress the banner/tip-of-the-day (by passing a flag, for example)?

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2011
    love it!

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2011
    I like the banner just keep it

  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2011
    Hate it. If I need a tip I will get a book.

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2011
    I think the "little things" like this banner are what I like most about the Exchange team and its community. You take a casual and friendly(/fun?) approach to things that would otherwise be boring. Keep it, please.

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2012
    I'm for supressing it as well (as an option). I write a lot of PowerShell scripts that may need to spool up RemoteExchange.ps1 for an EMS session. Being able to supress the banner stuff (maybe a switch for the script) would make for cleaner output in the scripts.

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2012
    Hi, I always found the banner very informative. It would be great if you could make get-help a standard banner and then give an example for Tip of the Day.

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2012
    Tip is useful, don't always read it. G

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2012
    I don't use it. I ignore it. Perhaps the first few dozen times I opened the EMS, I did read it. After six-ish years (since Exchange 2007 beta), I don't pay any attention to it. Then again, I'm a consultant, I have dozens of customers, and I open more than a dozen EMS sessions on an average work day.

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2012
    wish i could opt out.  fun on workstation.  waste of time on servers

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2015
    I like the idea of having a banner, but I HATE that you can't suppress it...

    http://www.yetanotheritguy.com/2015/01/exchange-management-shell-kills-puppies.html