SharePoint: PowerShell

This all started because someone wanted to rename their SharePoint 2010 site collection. And, of course, Microsoft doesn't provide an easy way to do that: it involves using SharePoint Management Shell to run Backup-SPSite, Remove-SPSite, and Restore-SPSite. But when I went into the virtual machine to run these commands, I found no SharePoint Management Shell!

I'm not an Administrator so I don't know any better: I thought you couldn't use Windows PowerShell in place of SharePoint Management Shell. I was wrong! I learned all that is needed is to enter this command before your SharePoint commands:

AddPsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

And voila! Now you can use your PowerShell commands without the SharePoint Management Shell.