Introduction
Nowadays, who in IT didn’t heard about Powershell and more specifically Windows Powershell? I think we can say not so much people.
Powershell evolved incredibly this last decade to the extend that now it is available on Linux and on MAC machines… and plenty of manufacturers as Dell, HP, and many others have developped their own modules for Windows Powershell to help IT admins in the daily administration of their products. it’s quite amazing!
Now, with Powershell and its modules developped my Microsoft and many other vendors and IT admin can tackle a massive amount of work with one core technology
Background
The following table gives you an overview of the release dates of the different version of Powershell and their avail abilities in the different editions of Windows.
| Powershell version | Release date | Default Operating System |
| Windows Powershell 1.0 | 2006 | Windows XP SP2, Windows 2003 SP1 and Vista |
| Windows Powershell 2.0 | 2009 | Windows 7 and 2008 R2 |
| Windows Powershell 3.0 | 2012 | Windows 8 and 2012 |
| Windows Powershell 4.0 | 2013 | Windows 8.1 and 2012 R2 |
| Windows Powershell 5.0 | 2016 | Windows 10 and 2016 |
| Windows Powershell 5.1 | 2016 | Windows 10 and 2016 |
| Powershell Core 6.0 | 2018 | Windows 10 and 2019, Linux and MacOS |
| Powershell Core 6.1 | 2018 | Windows 10 and 2019, Linux and MacOS |
Powershell Core 6.2 | 2019 | Windows 10 and 2019, Linux and MacOS |
Architecture of Windows Powershell
Windows Powershell is a component of the WMF (Windows Management Framework).
WMF? what’s that guy? 🙂
Based on Microsoft definition:
Windows Management Framework (WMF) provides a consistent management interface for Windows. WMF provides a seamless way to manage various versions of Windows client and Windows Server. WMF installer packages contain updates to management functionality and are available for older versions of Windows
Each version of WMF is composed of the following components.
- Windows PowerShell
- Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)
- Windows PowerShell Integrated Script Environment (ISE)
- Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
- Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
- Windows PowerShell Web Services (Management OData IIS Extension)
- Software Inventory Logging (SIL)
- Server Manager CIM Provider
To summarize WMF:
WMF, is a core component of windows based on .Net framework which permits to manage OSes in the same way whatever the version. It is composed of the components listed right above.
WMF is included in each version of Windows whatever it is a server or client OS. Here is a table explaining the availability of WMF based on the OS version:
| Windows Server 2019 | Ships in-box | ||||
| Windows Server 2016 | Ships in-box | ||||
| Windows 10 | Ships in-box | Ships in-box | |||
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | Yes | Yes | Ships in-box | ||
| Windows 8.1 | Yes | Yes | Ships in-box | ||
| Windows Server 2012 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ships in-box | |
| Windows 8 (Out of support) | Ships in-box | ||||
| Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ships in-box |
| Windows 7 SP1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ships in-box |
| Windows Server 2008 SP2 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Windows Vista (Out of support) | Yes | ||||
| Windows Server 2003 (Out of support) | Yes | ||||
| Windows XP (Out of support) | Yes | Yes |
Why Powershell?
The main goal of Powershell was to permits IT admins to automate long and repetitive taks but not only that. If you compare the time you need to click on different elements of the GUI and the time you need to run a command-line to accomplish the same thing. The CLI command wins.
What is Powershell?
As introduced here above, Powershell is a Command-Line (CLI) utility which permits to configure, report, analyze, a single or a multitude of servers and computers at the same time.
Interested to learn more? Let’s get started 🙂
itpassionate 
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