May 7

Written by: Tobias
5/7/2008 5:37 PM 

PowerShell is "supposed" to be 100% backwards compatible but in reality it isn't. It can't. It uses some special characters such as parenthesis that modify the way a line is parsed. So the following simple command will fail in PowerShell:

echo This won't work (because of the parenthesis)

or

wmic service where (startmode='Auto' and started=true) get /value

To make working in PowerShell a one-stop thing, I added the capability to execute native commands in the old cmd.exe environment simply by pressing SHIFT+ENTER. So when you enter the above line in PS+ console and press SHIFT+ENTER, you get the correct result.

You can even assign the results of a native command to a PS variable like this:

$a = dir (press SHIFT+ENTER)

Don't know PS+ yet? Go grab it: http://www.powershell.com/download/psp1.zip. Unzip, run. It's as easy as that. And it's free for non-commercial use. Enjoy!

Hungry for more? The latest (non-public) build is always available here: http://www.powershell.com/download/psp1new.zip. And the change log with the latest additions is available here: http://www.powershell.com/mantis/changelog_page.php.