Platform differences

Differences between PowerShell 7 on Windows and non-Windows platforms

  • PowerShell on Windows has several modules that aren’t available on non-Windows platforms

    The following modules are only available on Windows:

    • CimCmdlets
    • ISE (Windows PowerShell 5.1 only)
    • Microsoft.PowerShell.Diagnostics
    • Microsoft.PowerShell.LocalAccounts (Windows PowerShell 5.1 only)
    • Microsoft.PowerShell.ODataUtils (Windows PowerShell 5.1 only)
    • Microsoft.PowerShell.Operation.Validation (Windows PowerShell 5.1 only)
    • Microsoft.WsMan.Management
    • PSDiagnostics
    • PSScheduledJob
    • PSWorkflow (Windows PowerShell 5.1 only)
    • PSWorkflowUtility (Windows PowerShell 5.1 only)

  • Non-Windows platforms don’t support graphical features like Out-GridView and Get-Help -ShowWindow

  • Non-Windows platforms don’t support Authenticode or the PowerShell execution policy

  • Non-Windows platforms are case-sensitive

    PowerShell is case-insensitive but case-preserving on all platforms. Non-Windows platforms are case-sensitive. For example, environment variables are case-sensitive on Linux.

    PS> lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS
Release:        22.04
Codename:       jammy

PS> Test-Path env:path
False

PS> Test-Path env:PATH
True

  • PowerShell on Windows has several aliases that mimic native commands on non-Windows platforms

    Get-Command cat, clear, cp, diff, kill, ls, man, mount, mv, ps, rm, rmdir, sleep, sort, tee, write

    Windows:

    CommandType     Name                      Version    Source
-----------     ----                      -------    ------
Alias           cat -> Get-Content
Alias           clear -> Clear-Host
Alias           cp -> Copy-Item
Alias           diff -> Compare-Object
Alias           kill -> Stop-Process
Alias           ls -> Get-ChildItem
Alias           man -> help
Alias           mount -> New-PSDrive
Alias           mv -> Move-Item
Alias           ps -> Get-Process
Alias           rm -> Remove-Item
Alias           rmdir -> Remove-Item
Alias           sleep -> Start-Sleep
Alias           sort -> Sort-Object
Alias           tee -> Tee-Object
Alias           write -> Write-Output

    Linux:

    CommandType     Name     Version    Source
-----------     ----     -------    ------
Application     cat      0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/cat
Application     clear    0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/clear
Application     cp       0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/cp
Application     diff     0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/diff
Application     kill     0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/kill
Application     ls       0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/ls
Application     man      0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/man
Application     mount    0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/mount
Application     mv       0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/mv
Application     ps       0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/ps
Application     rm       0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/rm
Application     rmdir    0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/rmdir
Application     sleep    0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/sleep
Application     sort     0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/sort
Application     tee      0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/tee
Application     write    0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/write

  • PowerShell doesn’t support Linux-style background jobs

  • PATH, directory separator, and line-ending characters are different

    • Use [System.IO.Path] class to handle path separators
    • Use [System.Environment]::NewLine to handle line-ending characters