History

PowerShell has been around for a while.

• v1.0 was released in 2006 and it was an add-on, a free download. The interface looks just like the old command line.

• v2.0 was released in 2009, pre-installed by default in Windows 7 and Server 2008 with new features, including remoting and PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment.

• v3.0 was released in 2012, pre-installed by default in Windows 8 and Server 2012. This included online updates for help and IntelliSense for the ISE.

• v4.0 was released in 2013, pre-installed by default in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2. This included improvements in script security and debugging.

• v5.0 was released in 2016, pre-installed by default in Windows 10 and Server 2016. This included support for repositories and switch management (!).

On current machines, if you have all the updates, from January 2017 you are currently on v5.1. All my current machines are all on 5.1 and it is based on the .NET Framework version 4.5.2

From 2014, Microsoft announced .Net Core for cross-platform support. This runs on Windows, Linux, and MAC OS. .Net Core 1.0 was released in 2016 but after a few versions (and to create endless confusion) Microsoft abandoned the Core naming structure.

• There is a PowerShell v5 (2020) and v6.0 (2021).

• Version 7 was released in March 2020, at time of writing we are at v7.3