Difference Between PowerShell and CMD

The main difference between PowerShell and CMD is that the PowerShell is a powerful command line interface and a scripting environment that allows running complex scripts to perform windows system administrative tasks easily and efficiently while CMD is a command line interface that provides a set of commands for the user to interact with the computer to perform tasks.

Windows is a Microsoft-based Operating System. The CMD or the command prompt is the command line interpreter of the windows systems.  It allows the users to enter commands and to execute them. In order to make the system more powerful, Microsoft developed a new approach to command line management. Later, this feature was known as Windows PowerShell. CMD provides a collection of commands for the user to interact with the computer. PowerShell has additional enhancements, and it is more advanced than the CMD.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is PowerShell
     – Definition, Functionality
2. What is CMD
     – Definition, Functionality
3. Difference Between PowerShell and CMD
     – Comparison of Key Differences

Key Terms

PowerShell, CLI, CMD

What is PowerShell

PowerShell is an advanced version of CMD. It is used to automate system administration tasks that cannot be accessible from CMD. Also, it is used to run external programs such as ping and copy. Furthermore, it is a command line tool that is built on the .NET framework. Moreover, it has more features than regular CMD.

Figure 1: PowerShell

Besides, PowerShell allows the system administrators to perform administrative tasks on windows operating systems. It provides a collection of commands to write powerful scripts to perform those tasks. The automation scripts of the PowerShell are known as “cmdlets”. Also, PowerShell can interpret both batch commands and PowerShell commands.

What is CMD

CMD or the command prompt is the command line interpreter for the Microsoft Windows Operating system. It is available in most windows versions. It interacts with the user through the command line interface. In windows, it is implemented through Win 32 console.  

Figure 2: CMD

Moreover, CMD can be used to create scripts and batch files to execute various tasks. It allows issuing commands to perform file operations such as copying, pasting, and, deleting. Furthermore, it is similar to the MS-DOS command line interface. Here, the command prompt can be accessed by selecting the command prompt option from the start menu. CMD is also known as the cmd.exe.

Difference Between PowerShell and CMD

Definition

PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft, consisting of a command line shell and associated scripting language. CMD is a command line interpreter on Windows NT, Windows CE, OS/2 and eComStation operating systems.

Commands

A difference between PowerShell and CMD is that the PowerShell can interpret both batch commands and PowerShell commands while the CMD can interpret only batch commands. 

Functionality

Also, another difference between PowerShell and CMD is that the PowerShell is mostly used by system administrators to perform administrative tasks whereas the CMD interacts with the user programs and performs tasks according to user-issued commands.

Complexity

Moreover, PowerShell is more complicated and powerful than CMD.

Features

Besides, PowerShell has additional features and enhancements than CMD.

Conclusion

The difference between PowerShell and CMD is that the PowerShell is a powerful command line interface and a scripting environment that allows running complex scripts to perform windows system administrative tasks easily and efficiently while CMD is a command line interface that provides a set of commands for the user to interact with the computer to perform tasks. In brief, PowerShell consist of additional features than regular CMD.

Reference:

1. “PowerShell.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Sept. 2018, Available here.
2. “Cmd.exe.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Sept. 2018, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. “Windows PowerShell 1.0 PD” By Microsoft Corporation – Screenshot taken by User:Ghettoblaster from en.wikipedia (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia
2. “Windows 10 Command Prompt .EXE screenshot” By CandyJugz – PrtScn (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia