Installing PowerShell Core
The first step to using PowerShell is to upgrade it! By default, Windows 10 comes with Windows PowerShell 5, while the latest version is PowerShell Core version 7. PowerShell Core is a modern, fast, and open source version of PowerShell, and was initially released in August 2016. It's now a stable, complete alternative to Windows PowerShell 5.
PowerShell Core runs alongside Windows PowerShell 5, so there's no risk to installing it. Windows PowerShell 5 can still be used to run any existing, older scripts, while PowerShell Core can be used as the day-to-day shell in Windows Terminal.
PowerShell Core has several benefits over Windows PowerShell 5:
- Cross-platform and open source: In addition to Windows, PowerShell Core works on both macOS and Linux and is MIT licensed.
- Faster performance: Both initialization and module loading are faster. Anecdotally, shell initialization is almost twice as fast as PowerShell 5.
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