• For this series you’ll need a Windows VM.

When you search for ‘PowerShell’ using Windows search, there are two options available: PowerShell and PowerShell ISE

If you choose PowerShell, it will drop you to a PowerShell CLI.

For this Lab, let’s open PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) as Administrator.

The nice thing about the ISE it provides lots of assistance when running commands (It’s a highly searchable environment). On the right in the search bar, type ‘get-pr’, choose ‘Get-Process’, and then insert.

(You can click any graphic in these documents for a larger view.)

If you hit enter, you’ll see that you get a process listing.

We can also open a scripting panel, utilizing the option highlighted below. Once you open the scripting panel, type ‘get-service’ this time and click the ‘green arrow’ to run the script.

Let’s close the ‘commands’ menu and the ‘scripting’ panel so we are only looking at the PowerShell CLI.

An easy command that can clear your PowerShell screen is the ‘cls’ command. If you type ‘cls’ and hit enter, you’ll have a clear PowerShell window.

cls

PowerShell commands will always have the format of verb-noun (ie: Get-Service). It seems ‘cls’ breaks this rule. It’s actually an ‘alias’. Let’s take a look. Type:

get-alias cls