EDUCBA

EDUCBA

MENUMENU
  • Free Tutorials
  • Free Courses
  • Certification Courses
  • 360+ Courses All in One Bundle
  • Login

PowerShell vs Command Prompt

By Priya PedamkarPriya Pedamkar

Home » Data Science » Data Science Tutorials » Head to Head Differences Tutorial » PowerShell vs Command Prompt

owerShell vs Command Prompt

Difference Between PowerShell and Command Prompt

Command prompt or cmd is a default application of windows that are used to interact with any windows objects in the windows os. It enables users to directly interact with the system. It is most widely used for executing batch files or run simple utilities. PowerShell is a more advanced version of cmd. It is not only an interface but also a scripting language that is used to carry out administrative tasks more easily. Most of the commands executed on cmd can be run on PowerShell as well. In this post, we will discuss the difference between Powershell vs Command Prompt in detail.

Head to Head Comparison Between PowerShell and Command Prompt (Infographics)

Below are the top 14 differences between PowerShell vs Command Prompt:

Start Your Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

Powershell-vs-command-prompt-info

Key Differences between PowerShell and Command Prompt

Let’s discuss some of the major key differences between PowerShell vs Command Prompt:

  • The major key difference between PowerShell and command prompt is the understanding of what a command or cmdlet does for an average user. An average user will be able to guess what a PowerShell cmdlet is supposed to do just by looking at the cmdlet as most of the cmdlets are very easy to interpret because they follow an easy convention of a verb- followed by a noun.
  • cmdlets follow the verb-noun convention, the first part of any cmdlet will specify the type of action the cmdlet is going to perform, i.e. get, set or add and since it is followed by a noun it will denote what the action will perform.
  • PowerShell has a Get-help command which will help the user with all the available commands, their syntax, and aliases. Some examples of cmdlets are Add-Content, Get-Content, Get-Command. It is easier for an average user to understand what the above cmdlets will perform just looking at them. On the other hand, let’s look at some of the cmd commands driver query, cipher, assoc. The commands are not easily recognizable for an average user.
  • Another difference between PowerShell and cmd lies in the usage of them. Cmd is used primarily to execute batch commands, do some primary troubleshooting whereas PowerShell can be used for executing batch commands as well as administrative purposes.
  • Scripts can also be written in PowerShell to automate the tasks. PowerShell also has an ISE which makes it easier to write and debug scripts. Cmd cannot be used to interact with system objects in the core, whereas since PowerShell is built on .net platform it can interact with windows objects even at the core level.
  • Cmd works only with text. PowerShell is like Linux and it works with pipes. This means that the output of one cmdlet can be passed on to another cmdlet. This ensures that interaction between different programs in a system is possible or even interaction among different systems connected in a network.
  • PowerShell provides the user with the ability to create aliases for the cmdlets or scripts allowing them to switch back and forth between them in a seemingly easy manner. The output in PowerShell is an object.

PowerShell vs Command Prompt Comparison Table

Let’s discuss the topmost comparison between PowerShell vs Command Prompt:

PowerShell Command Prompt
PowerShell was introduced in the year 2006. cmd was introduced in the year 1981.
It can be opened from run by typing PowerShell. It can be opened from run by typing cmd.
It can operate with both batch commands and PowerShell cmdlets. It can work only with Batch commands.
It provides the ability to create aliases for cmdlets or scripts. This can help the user to navigate between the functions easily. It doesn’t support the creation of aliases of commands.
Output from a cmdlet can be passed to other cmdlets. Output from a command can’t be passed on to other commands.
Output is in the form of an object Output from a command is just text.
Can execute a sequence of cmdlets put together in a script. In cmd, a command must be finished before the next command is run.
Help command is available to get information regarding any cmdlets. No such help option is available for information regarding commands.
It has an ISE. There is only a command-line interface, no separate ISE.
It has access to programming libraries as it is built on .net framework. No such access to libraries.
It can integrate directly with WMI. Need some external plugin for WMI interaction.
I can connect with Microsoft cloud products. It doesn’t have the ability to connect with MS online products.
Supports Linux Systems. It doesn’t support Linux systems.
It can be used to run all types of programs. It can run only console type programs.

Examples of PowerShell vs Command Prompt

Let us see some basic operations that can be done by both using cmd and PowerShell with their syntax.

1. To change directory location

  • Cmd command: cd /d D:\testfolder
  • Powershell cmdlet: Set-Location ” D:\testfolder”

Output: Both the commands change the location from the current directory to the test folder in D drive.

Popular Course in this category
Sale
Data Scientist Training (85 Courses, 67+ Projects)85 Online Courses | 67 Hands-on Projects | 660+ Hours | Verifiable Certificate of Completion | Lifetime Access
4.8 (14,304 ratings)
Course Price

View Course

Related Courses
Tableau Training (7 Courses, 8+ Projects)Azure Training (6 Courses, 5 Projects, 4 Quizzes)Hadoop Training Program (20 Courses, 14+ Projects, 4 Quizzes)Data Visualization Training (15 Courses, 5+ Projects)All in One Data Science Bundle (360+ Courses, 50+ projects)

2. To list all the files in a directory

  • Cmd command: dir
  • Powershell cmdlet: Get-Childitem

Output: The above will display the files that are present in the current directory

3. Renaming a file

  • Cmd command: rename c: \old.txt new.txt
  • Powershell cmdlet: Rename-Item “c:\file.txt” -NewName “new.txt”

Output: The above commands will rename the file to be desired.

4. Accessing the help command

  • Cmd command:help [commandname] [/?]
  • Powershell cmdlet: Get-Help “Cmdlet name”

Output: Both displays the syntax and helpful information related to the command/cmdlet mentioned.

5. Stop a process

  • Cmd command: Stop-Process -Name “ProcessName”
  • Powershell cmdlet: Stop-Process -Name ” ApplicationName “

Output: Both stops the mentioned process from running.

6. Shutdown local system

  • Cmd command: shutdown /s
  • Powershell cmdlet: Stop-Computer

Output: Both shuts down the local system

7. Restart local system

  • Cmd command: shutdown /r
  • Powershell cmdlet: Restart-Computer

Output: Both restarts down the local system

8. Get ip address

  • Cmd command: ipconfig
  • Powershell cmdlet: Test-Connection -ComputerName (hostname)

Output: Both returns the ip address of the system

Conclusion

Thus, the article covered various aspects of command prompt and PowerShell. From a broader perspective, it would be better to start learning PowerShell as it is relatively new when compared with the command prompt and Microsoft is working on enhancing the features of PowerShell. Powershell is built on .net framework hence it has access to multiple libraries making it easier to connect with multiple systems. Finally, PowerShell is the go-to tool for administrators as it helps in automating various mundane tasks.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to PowerShell vs Command Prompt. Here we discuss the PowerShell vs Command Prompt key differences with infographics and comparison table. You can also go through our other suggested articles to learn more –

  1. ROLAP vs MOLAP vs HOLAP
  2. SSH vs SSL
  3. MariaDB vs MySQL
  4. Guide to Comparison between Cassandra vs MySQL
  5. Examples of PowerShell Set-Location
  6. PowerShell Rename-Item | How to Implement?
  7. PowerShell vs PowerShell ISE | Top 7

All in One Data Science Bundle (360+ Courses, 50+ projects)

360+ Online Courses

50+ projects

1500+ Hours

Verifiable Certificates

Lifetime Access

Learn More

1 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Primary Sidebar
Head to Head Differences Tutorial
  • Differences Tutorial
    • ArangoDB vs MongoDB
    • Cloud Computing vs Big Data Analytics
    • PostgreSQL vs MariaDB
    • Domo vs Tableau
    • Data Scientist vs Data Engineer vs Statistician
    • Big Data Vs Machine Learning
    • Business Intelligence vs Data Warehouse
    • Apache Kafka vs Flume
    • Data Science vs Machine Learning
    • Business Analytics Vs Predictive Analytics
    • Data mining vs Web mining
    • Data Science Vs Data Mining
    • Data Science Vs Business Analytics
    • Analyst vs Associate
    • Apache Hive vs Apache Spark SQL
    • Apache Nifi vs Apache Spark
    • Apache Spark vs Apache Flink
    • Apache Storm vs Kafka
    • Artificial Intelligence vs Business Intelligence
    • Artificial Intelligence vs Human Intelligence
    • Al vs ML vs Deep Learning
    • Assembly Language vs Machine Language
    • AWS vs AZURE
    • AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud
    • Big Data vs Data Mining
    • Big Data vs Data Science
    • Big Data vs Data Warehouse
    • Blu-Ray vs DVD
    • Business Intelligence vs Big Data
    • Business Intelligence vs Business Analytics
    • Business Intelligence vs Data analytics
    • Business Intelligence VS Data Mining
    • Business Intelligence vs Machine Learning
    • Business Process Re-Engineering vs CI
    • Cassandra vs Elasticsearch
    • Cassandra vs Redis
    • Cloud Computing Public vs Private
    • Cloud Computing vs Fog Computing
    • Cloud Computing vs Grid Computing
    • Cloud Computing vs Hadoop
    • Computer Network vs Data Communication
    • Computer Science vs Data Science
    • Computer Scientist vs Data Scientist
    • Customer Analytics vs Web Analytics
    • Data Analyst vs Data Scientist
    • Data Analytics vs Business Analytics
    • Data Analytics vs Data Analysis
    • Data Analytics Vs Predictive Analytics
    • Data Lake vs Data Warehouse
    • Data Mining Vs Data Visualization
    • Data mining vs Machine learning
    • Data Mining Vs Statistics
    • Data Mining vs Text Mining
    • Data Science vs Artificial Intelligence
    • Data science vs Business intelligence
    • Data Science Vs Data Engineering
    • Data Science vs Data Visualization
    • Data Science vs Software Engineering
    • Data Scientist vs Big Data
    • Data Scientist vs Business Analyst
    • Data Scientist vs Data Engineer
    • Data Scientist vs Data Mining
    • Data Scientist vs Machine Learning
    • Data Scientist vs Software Engineer
    • Data visualisation vs Data analytics
    • Data vs Information
    • Data Warehouse vs Data Mart
    • Data Warehouse vs Database
    • Data Warehouse vs Hadoop
    • Data Warehousing VS Data Mining
    • DBMS vs RDBMS
    • Deep Learning vs Machine learning
    • Digital Analytics vs Digital Marketing
    • Digital Ocean vs AWS
    • DOS vs Windows
    • ETL vs ELT
    • Small Data Vs Big Data
    • Apache Hadoop vs Apache Storm
    • Hadoop vs HBase
    • Between Data Science vs Web Development
    • Hadoop vs MapReduce
    • Hadoop Vs SQL
    • Google Analytics vs Mixpanel
    • Google Analytics Vs Piwik
    • Google Cloud vs AWS
    • Hadoop vs Apache Spark
    • Hadoop vs Cassandra
    • Hadoop vs Elasticsearch
    • Hadoop vs Hive
    • Hadoop vs MongoDB
    • HADOOP vs RDBMS
    • Hadoop vs Spark
    • Hadoop vs Splunk
    • Hadoop vs SQL Performance
    • Hadoop vs Teradata
    • HBase vs HDFS
    • Hive VS HUE
    • Hive vs Impala
    • JDBC vs ODBC
    • Kafka vs Kinesis
    • Kafka vs Spark
    • Cloud Computing vs Data Analytics
    • Data Mining Vs Data Analysis
    • Data Science vs Statistics
    • Big Data Vs Predictive Analytics
    • MapReduce vs Yarn
    • Hadoop vs Redshift
    • Looker vs Tableau
    • Machine Learning vs Artificial Intelligence
    • Machine Learning vs Neural Network
    • Machine Learning vs Predictive Analytics
    • Machine Learning vs Predictive Modelling
    • Machine Learning vs Statistics
    • MariaDB vs MySQL
    • Mathematica vs Matlab
    • Matlab vs Octave
    • MATLAB vs R
    • MongoDB vs Cassandra
    • MongoDB vs DynamoDB
    • MongoDB vs HBase
    • MongoDB vs Oracle
    • MongoDB vs Postgres
    • MongoDB vs PostgreSQL
    • MongoDB vs SQL
    • MongoDB vs SQL server
    • MS SQL vs MYSQL
    • MySQL vs MongoDB
    • MySQL vs MySQLi
    • MySQL vs NoSQL
    • MySQL vs SQL Server
    • MySQL vs SQLite
    • Neural Networks vs Deep Learning
    • PIG vs MapReduce
    • Pig vs Spark
    • PL SQL vs SQL
    • Power BI Dashboard vs Report
    • Power BI vs Excel
    • Power BI vs QlikView
    • Power BI vs SSRS
    • Power BI vs Tableau
    • Power BI vs Tableau vs Qlik
    • PowerShell vs Bash
    • PowerShell vs CMD
    • PowerShell vs Command Prompt
    • PowerShell vs Python
    • Predictive Analysis vs Forecasting
    • Predictive Analytics vs Data Mining
    • Predictive Analytics vs Data Science
    • Predictive Analytics vs Descriptive Analytics
    • Predictive Analytics vs Statistics
    • Predictive Modeling vs Predictive Analytics
    • Private Cloud vs Public Cloud
    • Regression vs ANOVA
    • Regression vs Classification
    • ROLAP vs MOLAP
    • ROLAP vs MOLAP vs HOLAP
    • Spark SQL vs Presto
    • Splunk vs Elastic Search
    • Splunk vs Nagios
    • Splunk vs Spark
    • Splunk vs Tableau
    • Spring Cloud vs Spring Boot
    • Spring vs Hibernate
    • Spring vs Spring Boot
    • Spring vs Struts
    • SQL Server vs PostgreSQL
    • Sqoop vs Flume
    • Statistics vs Machine learning
    • Supervised Learning vs Deep Learning
    • Supervised Learning vs Reinforcement Learning
    • Supervised Learning vs Unsupervised Learning
    • Tableau vs Domo
    • Tableau vs Microstrategy
    • Tableau vs Power BI vs QlikView
    • Tableau vs QlikView
    • Tableau vs Spotfire
    • Talend Vs Informatica PowerCenter
    • Talend vs Mulesoft
    • Talend vs Pentaho
    • Talend vs SSIS
    • TensorFlow vs Caffe
    • Tensorflow vs Pytorch
    • TensorFlow vs Spark
    • TeraData vs Oracle
    • Text Mining vs Natural Language Processing
    • Text Mining vs Text Analytics
    • Cloud Computing vs Virtualization
    • Unit Test vs Integration Test?
    • Universal analytics vs Google Analytics
    • Visual Analytics vs Tableau
    • R vs Python
    • R vs SPSS
    • Star Schema vs Snowflake Schema
    • DDL vs DML
    • R vs R Squared
    • ActiveMQ vs Kafka
    • TDM vs FDM
    • Linear Regression vs Logistic Regression
    • Slf4j vs Log4j
    • Redis vs Kafka
    • Travis vs Jenkins
    • Fact Table vs Dimension Table
    • OLTP vs OLAP
    • Openstack vs Virtualization
    • Cluster v/s Factor analysis
    • Informatica vs Datastage
    • CCBA vs CBAP
    • SPSS vs EXCEL
    • Excel vs Tableau
    • Cassandra vs MySQL
    • RabbitMQ vs Kafka
    • SAAS vs Cloud
    • RabbitMQ vs Redis
    • AMQP vs MQTT
    • Forward Chaining vs Backward Chaining
    • Google Data Studio vs Tableau
    • ActiveMQ vs RabbitMQ
    • Cloud vs Data Center
    • Cores vs Threads
    • Inner Join vs Outer Join
    • ZeroMQ vs Kafka
    • Mxnet vs TensorFlow
    • Redis vs Memcached
    • RDBMS vs NoSQL
    • AWS Direct Connect vs VPN
    • Cassandra vs Couchbase
    • Elegoo vs Arduino
    • Redis vs MongoDB
    • Chef vs Puppet
    • GSM vs GPRS
    • Keras vs TensorFlow vs PyTorch
    • Cloudflare vs CloudFront
    • Bitmap vs Vector
    • Left Join vs Right Join
    • IaaS vs PaaS
    • Blue Prism vs UiPath
    • GNSS vs GPS
    • Cloudflare vs Akamai
    • GCP vs AWS vs Azure
    • Arduino Mega vs Uno
    • Qualitative vs Quantitative Data
    • Arduino Micro vs Nano
    • PIC vs Arduino
    • PRTG vs Solarwinds
    • PostgreSQL vs SQLite
    • Metabase vs Tableau
    • Arduino Leonardo vs Uno
    • Arduino Due vs Mega
    • ETL Vs Database Testing
    • DBMS vs File System
    • CouchDB vs MongoDB
    • Arduino Nano vs Mini
    • IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS
    • On-premise vs off-premise
    • Couchbase vs CouchDB
    • Tableau Dimension vs Measure
    • Cognos vs Tableau
    • Data vs Metadata
    • RethinkDB vs MongoDB
    • Cloudera vs Snowflake
    • HBase vs Cassandra
    • Business Analytics vs Business Intelligence
    • R Programming vs Python
    • MongoDB vs Hadoop
    • MySQL vs Oracle
    • OData vs GraphQL
    • Soft Computing vs Hard Computing
    • Binary Tree vs Binary Search Tree
    • Datadog vs CloudWatch
    • B tree vs Binary tree
    • Cloudera vs Hortonworks
    • DevSecOps vs DevOps
    • PostgreSQL Varchar vs Text
    • PostgreSQL Database vs schema
    • MapReduce vs spark
    • Hypervisor vs Docker
    • SciLab vs Octave
    • DocumentDB vs DynamoDB
    • PostgreSQL union vs union all
    • OrientDB vs Neo4j
    • Data visualization vs Business Intelligence
    • QlikView vs Qlik Sense
    • Neo4j vs MongoDB
    • Postgres Schema vs Database
    • Mxnet vs Pytorch
    • Naive Bayes vs Logistic Regression
    • Random Forest vs Decision Tree
    • Random Forest vs XGBoost
    • DynamoDB vs Cassandra
    • Looker vs Power BI
    • PostgreSQL vs RedShift
    • Presto vs Hive
    • Random forest vs Gradient boosting
    • Gradient boosting vs AdaBoost
    • Amazon rds vs Redshift
    • Bigquery vs Bigtable
    • Data Architect vs Data Engineer
    • DataSet vs DataTable
    • dataset vs dataframe
    • Dataset vs Database
    • New Relic vs Splunk
    • Data Architect and Management Designer
    • Data Engineer vs Data Analyst
    • Grafana vs Tableau
    • MySQL text vs Varchar
    • Relational Database vs Flat File
    • Datadog vs Prometheus
    • Neo4j vs Neptune
    • Data Mining vs Data warehousing
    • DocumentDB vs MongoDB
    • PostScript vs PCL
    • QRadar vs Splunk
    • Qlik Sense vs Tableau
    • DigitalOcean vs Google Cloud
    • PostgreSQL vs Elasticsearch
    • Redshift vs blueshift
    • Gitlab vs Azure DevOps

Related Courses

Online Data Science Course

Online Tableau Training

Azure Training Course

Hadoop Certification Course

Data Visualization Courses

All in One Data Science Course

Footer
About Us
  • Blog
  • Who is EDUCBA?
  • Sign Up
  • Live Classes
  • Corporate Training
  • Certificate from Top Institutions
  • Contact Us
  • Verifiable Certificate
  • Reviews
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  •  
Apps
  • iPhone & iPad
  • Android
Resources
  • Free Courses
  • Database Management
  • Machine Learning
  • All Tutorials
Certification Courses
  • All Courses
  • Data Science Course - All in One Bundle
  • Machine Learning Course
  • Hadoop Certification Training
  • Cloud Computing Training Course
  • R Programming Course
  • AWS Training Course
  • SAS Training Course

© 2022 - EDUCBA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE CERTIFICATION NAMES ARE THE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

EDUCBA
Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

EDUCBA
Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

EDUCBA Login

Forgot Password?

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Let’s Get Started

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the cookie policy. By closing this banner, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to our Privacy Policy

Loading . . .
Quiz
Question:

Answer:

Quiz Result
Total QuestionsCorrect AnswersWrong AnswersPercentage

Explore 1000+ varieties of Mock tests View more

Independence Day Offer - Online Data Science Course Learn More