PowerShell Overview

Introduction

There are 2 types of PowerShell versions which can be present in a system. version 5.x - Example: 5.1.22621.2506 which we call it as Windows PowerShell or PowerShell Desktop Edition and other is version 7.x and above and we call it as PowerShell Core - Example: 7.4.0 which can be run on Windows/Linux/Mac OS machines (platform independent).

How to Open PowerShell

Windows PowerShell

1. To Open, Search for PowerShell in Windows Search
   In Windows 10:

   

   In Windows 11:

   

2. To Open, Select Windows PowerShell and Open

   

PowerShell Core

PowerShell Core is .NET Core version and platform independent. To run PowerShell Core Edition, we need to first install PowerShell Core in our system. Once its installed in the system then

1. To Open, Search for PowerShell in Windows Search

   

2. Select PowerShell and Open

   

Windows Terminal

If you have already installed Windows Terminal in Windows 10 or you are on Windows 11, you can open PowerShell from Windows Terminal as well.

1. To Open, Search for Terminal or Windows Terminal in Windows Search

   

2. We can select the PowerShell Edition directly we want to open (if both Windows/Desktop and Core Editions exist) or Open Terminal and then select the Profile we want to open by clicking on the expand button (down arrow)

   

Windows PowerShell ISE

Windows PowerShell ISE or Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) is a scripting environment for PowerShell Desktop Edition. We can have an interactive session with script pane (editor) and Commands Pane.

1. To Open, Search for PowerShell ISE in Windows Search

   Windows-PowerShell-ISE-Search-Win11]

2. Select PowerShell ISE and Open

   

Retrieve PowerShell Version

To retrieve PowerShell version

1. Open PowerShell
2. Type the command $PSVersionTable and hit enter

We will see output something similar to this below output for Windows Powershell and also we can see the PSEdition in the list is shown as Desktop.

 $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      5.1.22621.2506
PSEdition                      Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion                   10.0.22621.2506
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion              3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1

We will see output something similar to this below output for Powershell Core and also we can see the PSEdition in the list is shown as Core.

 $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      7.4.1
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    7.4.1
OS                             Microsoft Windows 10.0.22631
Platform                       Win32NT
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0