What is PowerShell?

PowerShell is a mixture of a command-line interface, a functional programming language, and an object-oriented programming language. PowerShell is based on Microsoft .NET, which gives it a level of open flexibility that was not available in Microsoft’s scripting languages (such as VBScript or batch) before this.

PowerShell has been written to be highly discoverable. It has substantial built-in help, which is accessible within the console via the Get-Help command. PowerShell has commands such as Get-Member to allow a user to discover the details of any objects it returns.

PowerShell 7 can be installed alongside Windows PowerShell. Windows PowerShell is installed in Windows\System32 by the Windows Management Framework packages, and it cannot be moved elsewhere. PowerShell Core and 7 are both installed in the Program Files folder and do not share any of the files used by Windows PowerShell. Preview versions of PowerShell can be installed alongside the full releases and have separate folder structures.

Command line customization is a popular subject, and several tools are available to help.