In a production environment, it will sometimes be necessary to deploy a server role to several virtual machines quickly. You might also need to install an application to multiple servers with an identical configuration. An elegant remote installation solution in cases such as these is the use of Custom Script Extensions for Windows.

Leveraging Custom Script Extensions allows you to, among other things, remotely install server roles, features, and applications right from your PowerShell session.

In this section, you will learn how to enable the File Services role on a virtual machine using a Custom Script Extension.