The command line interface to the Windows Server OS will be changed to the new Monad Shell (MSH), in a phased implementation to take place over the next three to five years. This confirmation comes from Microsoft senior vice president Bob Muglia in an interview published today by Microsoft.
Today"s announcement is the first confirmation from a high-level Microsoft source that Monad--a project launched in summer 2001 by Microsoft software engineer Jeffrey Snover--will serve as the command line and scripting language for future Windows servers. Presently in Windows Server 2003, another command line interface created by Snover called WMIC serves as the admin"s direct link to the core software component responsible for reporting the state of the system, called Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).