Q: Why, even though no module was loaded in my Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 PowerShell session, did a cmdlet from the module still work?
A: Typically to use cmdlets from a module, that module must be imported into the current PowerShell session using the Import-Module cmdlet. And that's still a good practice to explicitly load the modules you need in your session. However, PowerShell 3.0, which is part of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (but is also available for older OSs) features a new auto-loading capability of modules.