PowerShell is an open source shell and scripting language built on top of Microsoft .NET technology that allows people to manage tasks from the command line and automate multiple activities.
PowerShell is an object-oriented automation engine with an interactive command-line shell that it is specially developed to help IT professionals configure systems and automate administrative tasks. It is originated as an offering that was only available on Windows. It is a computer program that takes commands through the keyboard, interprets them, and relays them onto the operating system to further execute.
Related Searches : What is Windows Powershell?
What are the features of Powershell?
- Discoverability: We can discover PowerShell’s features which creates a list of all the commands, that includes cmdlets and functions, available on a given computer.
- Remote Commands: Admins can perform remote operations on one or multiple computers accordingly, taking advantage of technologies.
- Help Capabilities: Users can learn more and more about PowerShell principles and particular components such as cmdlets through the Get-Help cmdlet.
- Pipelining: By using PowerShell, commands can be linked together through the pipe operator, symbolized as.
- Background Job: PowerShell introduced the concept of background jobs that run scripts and cmdlets.
- Error-Handling Capability: PowerShell provides the error-handling mechanism through the Try{ }, Catch { }, and Finally {} blocks as in .NET language.
- Tab Expansion: Tab expansion is an implementation of auto-completion process which completes the cmdlets, properties, and parameter names by pressing the Tab key once.
How to set-up powershell In windows?
To start the process, Windows PowerShell < Start menu search bar < type windows powershell < Run as administrator. This step will launch the PowerShell program on your computer. Alternatively, you can set it up through the Run dialog. Then you need to press Windows key + R on your keyboard < type powershell < Enter to set-up PowerShell.
How to check powershell version?
- You’ll use the PowerShell utility itself when you’ll check the version number.
- To start the process, open the ‘Start’ menu, search for ‘Windows PowerShell’ and click it in the search results.
- In the PowerShell window that opens, type the following command given below and then press Enter:
$PSVersionTable
After that powerShell displays various numbers. Here, the first value that says ‘PSVersion’ is your PowerShell version.
Now you can close the PowerShell window.
Functions of PowerShell :
A PowerShell function is very similar to a PowerShell cmdlet, with slight differences. For developers and independent software vendors, it’s much easier to package and deploy a PowerShell cmdlet compared to packaging libraries of functions.
Let’s take an example of a PowerShell Function is:
function Set-Something {
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[Parameter()]
[string]$Thing
)
Write-Host $Thing
}