Introducing modules

Modules were introduced with the release of PowerShell version 2.0. A module is a packaged set of commands (binary commands, functions, and aliases) that includes any required supporting content; modules often include help content.

PowerShell 5.1 introduced support for classes written in PowerShell. These are explored in Chapter 19, Classes and Enumerations, but while support is present these are rarely directly user-accessible.

Modules tend to target a specific system or focus on a small set of related operations. For example, the Microsoft.PowerShell.Archive module contains a small number of commands for interacting with ZIP files.

The modules available on a system can be discovered using the Get-Module command.

The Get-Module command

Get-Module is used to find the modules either in the current PowerShell session or available on the current system.

PowerShell itself comes with several built-in modules, including PowerShellGet, ThreadJob...