Back in the days, when people used to use a computer, they had to type in everything. If you wanted a program to pop up, type it in the command line. If you wanted to print out a piece of data, then type it in the command line. I think you get the ideal. Soon, people were tired of the command line and a graphical version of what the command line did was created. This is when home computers started to really take off. Now normal people were no longer afraid to use a computer. All they had to do was to point and click and the computer reacted. But for people who use the computer a lot, the point and click of a mouse can be slower than typing the command that you want, into the command line. So Microsoft kept the Dos command line in all of their operating systems but it pretty much stayed stagnant as far as features that were available for it. Command line shells on other operating systems, such as Unix, Linux, BSD and OS X, were treated as first class citizens and were upgraded with new features all of the time. Now Microsoft has decided to appease the power users and so they improved their command line offering. They presented to the world, Powershell.
Powershell in Windows 7
Most people who use Windows 7 will not get much use out of Powershell. They do not use the computer no where near enough to justify typing in commands on a regular basis. But for people who use the computer a lot, Powershell is a welcomed relief. Now you can do everything that you have saw your computer brethren doing on their UNIX based systems over the years. If you want to pipe the data from one program into another, you can. If you want to create a script that will run a service on your computer at a certain time, you can. The flexibility that Powershell brings to the Windows operating system is staggering.
The best thing about Powershell, is how it lets you control parts of the Windows 7 operating system. If you need to place a path variable into your environment settings, you do not have to go to the visual portions of your operating system anymore. With the right commands, you can set it up right in the Powershell command line space. Now you can do a job such as this and not interrupt your natural work flow. There are all types of examples of jobs like this, that Powershell can do from inside of itself. Once you start to wield the power of the command line, it will be hard for you to give it back up. The amount of time that it saves for someone in IT is just incredible. Also, I forgot to mention that if you are a .Net developer, then you will feel right at home in Powershell. The scripting environment uses a .Net syntax and offers all of the features of .Net as well.
As you can see, if you are a heavy computer user, then Powershell will increase your productivity by a wide margin.
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