PowerShell is a cross-platform command-line interface, but it's only a great tool if you know what commands to run. In this guide, I will outline the top 15 cmdlets that everyone should use to ...

Get-Basics PowerShell uses a consistent syntax for all of its commands — in fact, PowerShell commands are actually called cmdlets, because they’re much more than simple DOS-style actions.

A script is a collection of those commands in a .ps1 file. A .ps1 file contains a script executed by PowerShell, such as the basic Get-Help command.

Figure 2. PowerShell can display basic operating system information. Incidentally, the Get-CimInstance cmdlet can display far more operating system information than what we are using here.

Don't just stick with the commands that Microsoft provides -- extend the commands in PowerShell.

Windows PowerShell ISE is a GUI-based application. You can use it to wite, run, and edit multiple scripts and commands in different tabs.

Although similar to PowerShell, the AWS command structure does have its own nuances.