Introduction

Microsoft Windows PowerShell was first introduced to the public in 2003, and released formally, as Windows PowerShell v1, in 2006. Microsoft has released multiple versions of Windows PowerShell. Microsoft plans to support Windows PowerShell 5.1 for a long time, but no new features are likely.

In 2016, the PowerShell development team began working on an open-source version of PowerShell based on the open-source version of .NET Core (later renamed to just .NET). You can read the announcement by Jeffrey Snover here: https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/powershell-is-open-sourced-and-is-available-on-linux/. This new version is just PowerShell (or PowerShell 7).

The initial versions (PowerShell 6.X) represented, in effect, a proof of concept – you could run the core functions and features of PowerShell across the Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. Those early versions also enabled the development team to implement all the necessary tooling to allow future development. But they were quite limited in supporting the rich needs of the IT professional community.

With the release of PowerShell 7.0 came improved parity with Windows PowerShell. A few modules did not work with PowerShell 7, and a few more operated via a compatibility mechanism. PowerShell 7.0 shipped in 2019 and was followed by version 7.1 and version 7.2 (released in late 2021). This book uses the term “PowerShell 7” to include PowerShell 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2. If there are version-specific issues, the chapters call those out specifically.

Microsoft does not include PowerShell 7 in Windows, thus you have to install it on each system. And as ever, you have options including direct from GitHub and via other installers such as Chocolatey.

Once you have installed PowerShell 7, you can use it just as you used the Windows PowerShell console to run commands or scripts. You can run it from a shortcut on the desktop, from the start panel, from a shortcut on the taskbar, or just run the executable. The name of the executable for PowerShell 7 is pwsh.exe (versus powershell.exe for Windows PowerShell).

Another important difference is that PowerShell 7 uses different profile file locations from Windows PowerShell. This feature allows you to customize your profiles to use the new PowerShell 7 features. And that, in turn, enables you to run both Windows PowerShell and PowerShell 7 side by side without interference.

Most IT pros who have used Windows PowerShell are familiar with the Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE). The ISE was a great tool you used with Windows PowerShell. However, you cannot use the ISE with PowerShell 7. A very worthy successor to the ISE is Visual Studio Code (VS Code), an open-source editing project that provides all the features of the ISE and a great deal more. Installation of VS Code is optional but relatively straightforward.

Microsoft also developed a new font, Cascadia Code, to coincide with the launch of VS Code. This font is a nice improvement over Courier or other mono-width fonts. All screenshots of working code in this book use this new font.

PSReadLine is a PowerShell module designed to provide color-coding of PowerShell scripts in the PowerShell 7 Console. The module, included with PowerShell 7 by default, makes editing at the command line easier and more on par with the features available in Linux shells. You can also use the later versions of PSReadLine with Windows PowerShell.

Systems used in the chapter

This chapter is all about getting you started with PowerShell 7 – installing and configuring your environment to make the most out of PowerShell 7. In this chapter, you use a single host, SRV1, as follows:

Figure 1.1: Host in use for this chapter

In later chapters, you will use additional servers and promote SRV1 to be a domain-based server rather than being in a workgroup.