Do I need Windows PowerShell? While many inexperienced users are familiar with the Command Prompt, only a few have heard of Windows PowerShell. PowerShell is a far more capable tool than Command Prompt. It is also meant to replace the Command Prompt because it provides more power and control over Windows OS. That’s why we decided to try PowerShell and explain to all of our readers what this tool is, why it’s so powerful, and who uses it the most. Let’s have a look at PowerShell and what it can do:
Do I need Windows PowerShell?
PowerShell is a new Command-Line shell, like the CMD.exe tool that you have on your machine now. You don’t need it, it’s only used by systems administrators or advanced Windows users.
What is PowerShell in Windows?
To get a better knowledge of PowerShell, let’s first define a shell. No, we’re not referring to a turtle’s shell. A shell is a user interface in computer science that provides access to various operating system services. A shell can be command-line alone or have a graphical user interface (GUI).
Windows PowerShell is a shell created by Microsoft originally for task automation & configuration management. Power Shell is becoming an open-source project that can be run on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Based on the.NET framework, this shell offers a command-line shell as well as a scripting language.
PowerShell’s first version was published in November 2006 for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista. Windows PowerShell 5.1 is the most recent version of Power Shell, and it was released in 2016 as part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update & Windows Server 2016. It is also compatible with Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2, as well as Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 8.1. (Pro and Enterprise editions).
What can you do with PowerShell?
Microsoft created Windows PowerShell as a tool to help you automate and rapidly resolve a variety of administrative tasks. For example, you can use PowerShell to display all USB devices installed on one or more computers on a network, or you can schedule a time-consuming activity to run in the background while you work on something else. You may also locate and stop non-responsive processes, as well as filter and export specific information about computers in a network in HTML format.
As a network administrator, you may find PowerShell useful when working with Active Directory. PowerShell can help you become more productive since it provides hundreds of customisable commands known as cmdlets. To understand more about it, we recommend Ed Wilson’s book Windows PowerShell Step by Step. If you want to see what’s new in the current version of Windows PowerShell for Windows 11 and Windows 10, go to this official Microsoft website: PowerShell Documentation.
