Hello World in PowerShell

Watch out! This tutorial is over 8 years old. Please keep this in mind as some code snippets provided may no longer work or need modification to work on current systems.
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This is how you would display “Hello World” in PowerShell.

Note: PowerShell commands also have the ability to be run in a script with the .ps1 extension but running scripts are disabled by default for security purposes. Firstly, you will need to set the Execution Policy. The cmdlet Get-ExecutionPolicy will show you that the initial policy is set to ‘Restricted’. This will prevent scripts from running. You can change it with the Set-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet. There are four options Restricted, Remote-signed, Signed and Unrestricted. We recommend Remote-Signed as it will allow you to run the scripts that you have created locally and still keep your machine secure.

So, just type

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Now you can use notepad to create your first script. In Notepad type:

Write-Host "Hello World"

This will need to be saved in a file called something like HelloWorld.ps1.

Then from a PowerShell console type

.\HelloWorld.ps1

The reason you need the .\ is because a PowerShell security feature ensures that you are targeting a specific script in a specific location,. And that’s all there is to it.