PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management provided by Microsoft for Windows Operating systems. Powershell provides interactive shell for issuing commands. Powershell platform also provides scripting language.

Powershell have access to the underlying operating system components like COM , WMI WS-Management etc. Powershell is developed in .Net framework.

Versions

Powershell started developing in 2003 but it takes some time to release first version.

PowerShell 1.0

First version released in 2006 and supported operating systems are

• Windows XP SP2,
• Windows Server 2003 SP1,
• Windows Vista

Powershell 2.0

Powershell 2.0 is integrated with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 . The following new features are added to the v2

• Powershell Remoting will enabled scripts and cmdlets to run remote systems
• Background Jobs allow run scripts asynchronously
• Transactions will added and can be used for write operations like registry
• Modules are used to organize scripts and script files in a name space manner.
• Script Debugging is used to trouble shot scripts while running
• Eventing is an other useful feature used to listening, forwarding management and system events
• Integrate Scripting Environment is a tool used to write, run and debug Powershell scripts.
• Network File transfer can transfer files to remote systems.

Powershell 3.0

Powershell version 3 is integrated to the Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 and following features are added

• Scheduled Jobs is very useful feature added in this version
• Code Completion is used to auto complete or suggest commands

Powershell 4.0

Version 4.0 comes with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2

• Desired State Configuration allow to specify end configuration of a service
• Where and ForEach keywords for loops

Powershell 5.0

Version 5 have following features

• Class Definition will enable more complex data structure creation
• Enumeration is used to foreach in array like structures

Cmdlet

Cmdlet or commandlets are specialized commands to implements specific functions. Cmdlet uses Verb-Noun pattern for naming. For example Get-ChildItem express cmdlet function with verb Get and noun ChildItem .

Integrate Shell Environment ISE

ISE is simple tool provided by Powershell to develop, run, debug Powershell scripts. It provides existing cmdlets help and auto completion to easy Powershell development job.