PowerShell FactsCIS 1402: Intro to CIS

Tom Gustafson

Facts About PowerShellPowerShell is Microsoft’s command-line

interface that provides scripting and management capability.

The commands in PowerShell are called “cmdlets” – pronounced “command-lets.”

You can use Windows command-line utilities like IPCONFIG, DIR, and NET USE in PowerShell.

PowerShell doesn’t run on Linux, but it has some similar commands like ls and man.

PowerShell allows you to create your own aliases, scripts, and functions.

Facts About PowerShellThe latest version of Powershell is 3.0 and it

comes with Windows 8 and Server 2012.PowerShell 2.0 is automatically installed with

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.Windows Vista, Server 2008, and previous

versions do not have PowerShell by default and it must be installed manually.

Facts About PowerShellPowerShell uses a Verb-Noun standard for all

its commands.Verbs like Get or Set are used to describe what

a command does.Nouns like Date, Service, or Command are

used to describe what the command acts upon.Examples:

Get-Service Get-Command Set-Date

Facts About PowerShellPowerShell commands and parameters ARE

NOT case sensitive! This means that Get-Help, get-help, get-Help, and Get-help all mean the same thing to PowerShell.

In PowerShell, findstr search strings ARE case sensitive. The commands:

Get-Command | findstr WriteGet-Command | findstr write

will find different results.

Facts About PowerShellPowerShell Has Time-Saving Features in its CLI

(Command-Line Interface):Tab-completion allows you to type part of a

command or filename, press Tab, and the command will be completed for you.

Command History keeps a record of recent commands. You can use the up and down arrow keys to retrieve commands. F7 displays commands in a window.

Parameters can be abbreviated as long as they are unique. You can type get-service –N dnscache instead of get-service –Name dnscache.

Facts About PowerShellPowershell is a very important topic to

anyone who does IT work with Windows computers.Programmers can write scripts and functions

using PowerShell.Network or System Administrators can manage

systems and find information very quickly if they know PowerShell

The object-oriented concepts are very important for: Programmers using object-oriented languages Network Administrators using Active Directory

Facts About PowerShellPowerShell uses .NET objects. It is an object-

oriented environment..NET is a software framework that runs on

Windows..NET is the environment in which Windows

software is developed..NET provides software libraries and

services.You will hear a lot about .NET in the future!

It’s good to start becoming familiar with it.