What is PowerShell? What is CMD? In this Windows PowerShell vs CMD article, you will find all of these answers and know some difference between Windows PowerShell and Command Prompt. In addition, you can visit MiniTool to find more tips for your computer and hard drives.
What Is Windows PowerShell?
Windows PowerShell is a command line language and associated scripting language for system administrators. It was a component of Windows initially, known as the Windows PowerShell. However, with the introduction of PowerShell Core, it was made as an open-source and cross-platform on August 2016.
The Windows PowerShell is built on the .NET Framework, so it enables IT professionals and power users to control and automate the Windows operating system or applications running on Windows.
What Is CMD?
CMD, also known as the Command Prompt, is a command-line interpreter of the operating system. It can be used to interact with the operating system using the text-based commands and parameters.
In Windows 95, 98 and ME, the Command Prompt was called the COMMAND.COM, also known as the MS-DOS.
CMD is a 32-bit command-line program. Based on the Windows command interpreter, it is similar to the DOS operating system.
Command Prompt Windows 10: Tell Your Windows to Take Actions
However, there are some differences in CMD and PowerShell. So in the following section, we will show you some information about PowerShell vs CMD.
PowerShell vs CMD
In this section, we will briefly show you information about CMD vs PowerShell. So, continue your reading to know more.
The Windows PowerShell and CMD have some similarities. For example, both of them are command-line interpreter. However, there are some differences between Windows PowerShell and CMD.
As a matter of fact, the Windows PowerShell is a more advanced command-line interpreter than the CMD. The Windows PowerShell can do a lot of the same things or more.
The PowerShell uses the cmdlets, which are self-contained programming objects that expose the underlying administration options inside of Windows. Windows PowerShell includes more than 100 basic core cmdlets that you can write your own or share with other users.
The PowerShell makes use of pipes which enables you to pass the output of one cmdlet to the input of another cmdlet just as Linux does. In this way, you can use multiple in sequence to handle the same data. It is not like the Unix-like systems – which can only pipe streams of characters.
The Windows PowerShell is not just a shell but is a powerful environment where you can create complex scripts for managing Windows systems much more easily than the Command Prompt.
The CMD is essentially just a legacy environment where it copies all of the various DOS commands you would find on a DOS system. But it is limited since it can’t access many Windows system administration features. Besides, it is also difficult to compose complex scripts. From this aspect, you can learn that Windows PowerShell is more advanced than the Command Prompt.
Windows PowerShell is designed for IT professionals since it is a more powerful tool.
Final Words
To sum up, this post has introduced what the Windows PowerShell is and what the CMD is. The post also has briefly introduced some features of them. It also has introduced some difference of Windows PowerShell vs CMD.