STSADM Overview

        Sharepoint includes the STSADM tool for command-line administration of sites. STSADM is located at the following path on the drive where SharePoint Products and Technologies is installed: %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin. You need to be an administrator on the local computer to use STSADM.When you invoke STSADM, you supply an operation and a set of command-line parameters in the form:

                 -operation OperationName -parameter value

eg: stsadm -o enumgroups -url http://abc.xyz.com/ 

STSADM provides a method for performing the Sharepoint administration tasks at the command line or by using batch files or scripts. STSADM provides access to operations not available by using the Central Administration site, such as changing the administration port. The command-line tool has a more streamlined interface than Central Administration, and it allows you to perform the same tasks. There are certain operations and certain parameters that are only available by using the STSADM command-line tool.

STSADM.exe is available with the below versions of SharePoint : 

SPS2003 | MOSS2007 | Sharepoint 2010 | Sharepoint 2013 |

Since the release of Sharepoint 2010, Powershell is being used for the Sharepoint administrator operations. The use of the STSADM command has NOT gone away with SharePoint 2010 and 2013 – interesting to note that it’s still called STSADM – as in SharePoint Team Services(2001)

Related Post: STSADM Commands - Reference