PowerShell: the cross-platform shell and scripting language
The open-source PowerShell 7 project from Microsoft: an object-based shell and automation language that runs on Windows, Linux and macOS and is the successor to Windows PowerShell 5.1.
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PowerShell/PowerShell
- Stars
- 55.7k
- Forks
- 8.5k
- Language
- C#
- Licence
- MIT
- Last push
- 14 Oct 2026
On GitHub: PowerShell for every system!
Open on GitHubPowerShell/PowerShell (about 56,000 stars) is the source code and release home of PowerShell 7, the current version of Microsoft’s shell. It is built on .NET, released under the MIT license, and ships for Windows, most Linux distributions and macOS. Where Windows PowerShell 5.1 is frozen and bundled with Windows, this is the version that gets new cmdlets, operators such as && and ||, the ternary operator, ForEach-Object -Parallel and regular security fixes.
Use it when you manage Windows machines and want modern language features, when you want one scripting language across Windows and Linux servers, or when you write automation for Azure, Microsoft 365 or Exchange, whose modules target PowerShell 7. It installs side by side with Windows PowerShell, so existing scripts keep working while you move over. On Linux and macOS it is a capable alternative to bash for people who already think in PowerShell, with the same object pipeline and Get-Member discoverability.
Install on Windows with winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell -e, on macOS with brew install --cask powershell, and on Linux from the Microsoft package repositories described in the installation guide. Then run pwsh. The repository’s releases page also carries portable ZIP and MSI downloads and $PSVersionTable tells you what you are running.
PowerShell was created by Jeffrey Snover at Microsoft and open-sourced in 2016; the project is maintained by the PowerShell team at Microsoft with contributions from the community. Issues and RFCs for new language features are discussed in the open on the repository.
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See also
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- 0397 PowerShell cheat sheet The PowerShell cmdlets and patterns you use every day: files, text, processes, services, filtering, exporting, remoting and the operators that trip up… Beginner · Cheat sheet · Linux, macOS, Windows Article PowerShell 15 Oct 2026
- 0399 Fix: running scripts is disabled on this system (execution policy) PowerShell refuses to run .ps1 files until the execution policy allows it. The usual fix is RemoteSigned for your own user; here… Beginner · Fixes an error · Windows Article PowerShell · Windows administration 15 Oct 2026
- 0401 Windows services, Task Scheduler and event logs from PowerShell Manage the three things Windows administrators touch most: query and restart services, create and inspect scheduled tasks, and search the event logs… Intermediate · Step by step · Windows Article PowerShell · Windows administration 15 Oct 2026
- 0404 Find the largest folders on a drive with PowerShell Lists the biggest top-level folders under a path, with file counts and sizes in GB, so you can see where the disk… Beginner · Step by step · Linux, macOS, Windows Script PowerShell · Windows administration 15 Oct 2026
- 0405 Export the list of installed programs to CSV with PowerShell Reads the Windows uninstall registry keys and writes name, version, publisher and install date of every installed program to a CSV file.… Beginner · Step by step · Windows Script PowerShell · Windows administration 15 Oct 2026
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