Yesterday, I blogged about my favorite four new PowerShell 2.0 features. The one I like most is Graphical PowerShell. Maybe “IDE” (Integrated Development Environment) is an exaggeration. Graphical PowerShell is still a very simple tool. But, I think, it is a good start, and I hope that Microsoft will keep on adding new features. In this post, you’ll find some screenshots and a short description of Graphical PowerShell.

The first thing you should do before you start playing with Graphical PowerShell is to change the execution policy to “unrestricted“. Otherwise, you won’t be able to run scripts within Graphical PowerShell. Open a PowerShell prompt as administrator and type:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

If you want to learn more about execution policies type:

get-help about_signing

Okay, let’s start looking at Graphical PowerShell.

Syntax highlighting

Check out the screenshot and you’ll see how Graphical PowerShell highlights syntax.

Graphical PowerShell Syntax Highlighting

Multi-tabbed scripting pane

Grapical PowerShell allows you to open multiple scripts and you can switch between them using tabs.

Graphical PowerShell Tabs

Run scripts

In the upper pane, you can edit the scripts. After you saved it in a file, you can run it within Graphical PowerShell. The output of the script will be displayed in the middle pane.

PowerShell Run Scripts

Work on the command line

To work interactively with PowerShell you have to type in commands in the lower pane. The ouput will be displayed in the middle pane.

Graphical PowerShell Command Line

Multiple runspaces

The concept of runspaces is probably something for advanced PowerShell programmers. In Grapical PowerShell, you can consider them as different shells. Runspaces are organized in vertical tabs.

Graphical PowerShell Runspaces

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