What follows is a discussion of the main
features that set Windows PowerShell apart from other management interfaces and make it the most
powerful administrative interface that Microsoft has ever produced.
Shell History
Before there was the Graphical User Interface (GUI), there was the Command Line Interface (CLI). The
CLI was born of a need to quickly interact with the operating system at a time when computers were
mostly controlled using punch card or paper tape input. The first CLIs used teletype machines to enter
commands directly into the computer for execution, with the results returned to the operator as printed
output. Teletypes were later replaced with dedicated text - based CRT terminals that offered an even
greater advantage in speed and the amount of information available to the operator.
All CLIs rely on a program that interprets textual commands entered on the command line and turns
them into machine instructions. This program is known as a command - line interpreter or shell. Every
major operating system includes some sort of shell interface. UNIX administrators may be familiar with
several shells (SH, KSH, CSH, and BASH) as well as the text processing languages AWK and PERL.
Windows users may also be familiar with cmd.exe , the Windows command - line interpreter and the
Windows Script Host for running scripts.
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