Cmdlets are similar to Windows Commands but provide a more extensible scripting language. PowerShell was designed to extend the capabilities of the Command shell to run PowerShell commands called cmdlets. Each shell is a software program that provides direct communication between you and the operating system or application, providing an environment to automate IT operations. Windows has two command shells: The Command shell and PowerShell. Scripts accept all Commands that are available at the command line. You can perform operations more efficiently by using scripts than you can by using the user interface. For more information, see cscript or wscript. With Windows Script Host you could run more sophisticated scripts in the Command shell. The Command shell was the first shell built into Windows to automate routine tasks, like user account management or nightly backups, with batch (.bat) files. The information that is contained in this topic applies to: This set of documentation describes the Windows Commands you can use to automate tasks by using scripts or scripting tools.
All supported versions of Windows (server and client) have a set of Win32 console commands built in.
