Here's the link to the script I made for those wondering: github.com/ThioJoe/youtube-dl-easy

CMD Prompt: "Who are you?" Powershell: "I'm you, but bluer."

I can't wrap my mind around how this guy went from telling people to pickle their iPhones in hand sanitizer for free mobile data to making actually informative, well-structured videos

The house and background looks lit

Microsoft: We are removing command prompt. People in 2025: Only the OG remember command prompt.

The .​/ is from Linux - and must be specified to execute within the current directory as opposed to an executable in $PATH. This is to help avoid name collisions.

For those in a hurry Powershell = blue command prompt with yellow font

The things you find weird in Powershell are standard ways of doing things from Unix that have been around forever. Using -eq in an if statement is useful because you can use other things in place of it to do other tests. Instead of checking to see if a string or numeric value is equal to something else, you could test something like whether a file exists or what kind of file something is. That's strange for other kinds of languages but it makes good sense in a shell scripting language. As for having to specify the local directory with .\ to run a program in the current directory, that's a security feature that has also been around forever in Unix. Imagine you're sitting in your home directory and you want to run something like ping. The standard Windows version is in your $PATH but your current location isn't. Maybe something malicious put a bad version of ping in your home directory. You want the real one, not the dangerous one, so running things in the local directory is blocked unless directly specified and the system looks to the $PATH to find it.

I'm learning english and this is the only channel I can understand everything without subtitles. You have a good diction.

Big brain mode: PS C:\Users\User> cmd

You can't even watch star wars in powershell :/

easy: one looks cool,and can change theme without activining windows. other one looks anicent but its faster /s

Command prompt also supports pipes. It just does text instead of objects which powershell does like you mentioned in the video. Just wanted to share that you can use piped output far before powershell ever existed.

Command Prompt: black Powershell: I'm blue Da ba dee da ba di Da ba dee da ba di

1. There's nothing wrong at all with nested if-s in Batch: if 1 == 1 ( if 2 == 2 ( echo yas ) else ( echo no ) ) 2. You have to launch programs with *./* because otherwise it's a security vulnerability. Imagine you download some archive with many many files, you extract it and _cd_ into it. Then you run _dir_ but this archive already comes with its own dir.exe, which in turn could be malicious, so that's why current directory is not automatically added to your PATH.

I'm always amazed by how much more information I actually get from your videos than I could ever expect, good job!

How I use powershell... "Start cmd"

Great informative video. I'm a systems administrator and I got my most recent job thanks to powershell. During my interview I displayed how I had automated the deployment and configuration of virtual machines to automatically spin up game servers all in powershell and python. Without powershell I wouldn't have the decent lifestyle I have today. This video is a great primer on the basic concepts of powershell, it was really well done. You're clearly knowledgeable about what you're talking about and well researched. Keep up the great work.

The "./" token is a PowerShell security feature that insures the intended application or script is run from the current directory and not an application of the same name in the system or user path that could be potential malware or incompatible application version that may be on a system. Not stupid.

To add to this video for those that are more technical. A lot of the syntax and aliases used by PowerShell were created to provide less of a learning curve for those of us more attuned to bash scripting/Linux terminals. If you look at a PowerShell script compared to a more advanced bash script you can see similarities other than the PowerShell-only commands. (echo instead of Write-Host and so on). With this knowledge, someone who is adept with either scripting language can fill in the blanks and learn the other with relative ease.

7:15 cd is not the cmd command for bash's ls, dir is

Those oddities in PowerShell you mentioned (like writing -eq instead of =) aren't really oddities because as it turns out this is how you write in bash (the most popular Linux command shell) as well. However, in bash you can also use a legacy method with = instead of -eq, for example, but the syntax is a little different. The same is the case with adding ./ before running a script.

Excellent video. I've been wanting a closer look at these two for a while, and you did a great job explaining the difference. I will start using PowerShell from now on.

More than five years I have struggled a lot to fix my PC, even I lost some videos and a lot of files I had saved. I tried some maintenance but I got no solution even my window installation was corrupted and I have also lost two laptops b/c of these previously but now b/c of your support and other similar tutorials I have learned how to fix all the problems and my PC is clean and faster than I expected. Thank you for all your support and good advice's. GBU!

"you have to use -eq which is stupid" Me after 3 years of ksh 👀

how to hack the government: 1. Open cmd 2. color 0a

Hey, really great video! I love this layout of the video and the laid back environment fits your videos perfectly. Nice job!

This reminds me a lot of the differences between OS/2 shell and command shell in OS/2. Basically you can do just about anything you would do in command shell in OS/2 shell but a whole lot more. OS/2 was quite powerful in its day.

The reason for the "./program.exe" is to make it more similar to Linux syntax. In Linux, without the ./, the program is assumed to be in the /bin directory, so you need to explicitly state that your program is in the current folder. This is the same case in PowerShell.

The reason you have to type the " ./ ", is because by default, Powershell (and Bash + other shells) will look for commands in a commands folder, like where that PING.EXE was, for example. So you have to specify that you want to execute the command that is in your working directory.

i love how you talked about this on your couch.

I drove my old XP into the ground to see how long it would last online after support stopped - over 2 yrs. I have had 10 now for 2 yrs and caught on well due to the fact that I was spending 25 hrs/week maintaining XP for about 8 months. I have been learning a lot about the complexity of 10 and it does impress me all in all. Thanks for the online help. 👍👍

Teacher: opening another tab will close the main tab Me with powershell doing math: i can’t hear you

My guess as to what the -eq thing is about, is that it looks like all variables in powershell are objects, since you don't have to declare types. In object oriented languages, you have to use a separate command for finding out equivocation, because the raw value for objects is their location in memory, not their contents.

This is awesome. I've been wondering about the difference between these two terminals for a long time. Thanks for the clear and easy to follow explanation!

I really like this guy's presentation. Not too flashy, and easy to follow.

10:26 Of course you can use nested IF statements in batch files. Also ELSE and ELSE IF.

I used to not like Powershell's font but then Windows Terminal came out.

Learning powershell right now for work and this video is an absolute gem.

I like it. It clear a question I had for a long time in a simple language . Thank you.

Good introduction. THANKS! BTW - MSDOS commands will pipe output and input.

This is just a 13 minute video... I can't believe that in only 13 minutes you were able to create the best video I have ever seen to explain Powershell basics to any of my peers in such a short time, this is honestly just amazing!

Super helpful explanation on objects!!! Love the analogy. Thanks for the great video!

Thanks, learnt a lot. I'm not likely to switch over to Powershell for the basics that I need but great to know about for the future.

Theo-kun... You're underestimating CMD, you're denying a lot of things it can actually do (such as creating variables and using nested if statements) But I enjoyed the video, thanks for the information :D

Pipes can also be used in Command Prompt.

Thx much for this -- for me a very useful intro to the Powershell (and why I might have to expand my horizons beyond the trusty ole DOS prompt)

Wow! 13 minutes and you explained all this so well even I understood some of it ...sort of. Thanks!

Finally someone making comparison videos the right way. Great work man!

I use Cortana for all my windows commands

Wtf was that intro! Absolutely Genius! The way that you stylishly stuck your head out from behind the couch while unemotionally saying "Windows" with no context. Amazing.

This was an excellent explanation, thank you sir! Subbed!

It feels weird that Windows 10 still has an MS-DOS shell decades after MS-DOS was released, honestly PowerShell should be the main, default command shell, while the MS-DOS shell should be an optional install, however backwards compatibility and all that...

i really like yo house :D

Dude, you are awesome. This was a great video. You explain things really well. Glad you kept it super rudimentary here. Computers are a pretty cool hobby, time to time

Thank you. I always saw powershell only as a program for some advanced people who worked with hundreds of computers in a corporate setup. After watching this I think it has some pretty cool uses for us as well.

I personally use command prompt, because it launches much faster and I am more familiar with it (first OS for me was XP, where there was no Power Shell). Also command prompt DOES support variables within command window using the SET command (e.g. set /a i=4+7), but it only supports 2 data types (strings and integers). And you CAN use nested if statements, but it requires to enable delayed expansion with variables called with !variablename! instead of %variablename% and it is quite messy anyway requiring you to group commands with parenthesis. Example: @echo off setlocal enabledelayedexpansion set /p value=Enter first value: set /p subvalue=Enter second value: if !value! == 42 ( if !subvalue! == 777 ( echo Lucky life ) else ( echo Unlucky life ) ) else ( echo No life ) endlocal exit /b Command prompt also does use some external commands (programs in System32 as you said, e.g. for.exe, ping.exe, etc.).

Awesome sofa you got there

The new windows terminal with oh-my-posh looks awesome 👍🏻

I had this question for my whole life thanks for making a vid on this

I feel real Vsauce with these setups. I like it.

Where can we get that KZfaq DL script?

informative and funny! I like the ambiance here. Thank you!

you're really good at explaining. thank you

7:23 CMD also has pipes... And you can use powershell commands in cmd, by invoking powershell, the same way you would a ping.exe or whatever. Also I don't know why people call GOTO commands weird. They are incredibly easy to understand... Like an adventure book of coding. If someone is just starting out I would argue that GOTO is a lot easier to underatand than a bunch of function commands in powershell. Lastly, cmd doesn't have that annoying execution policy enabled by default, so IMO wrapping your powershell scripts into .cmd or .bat is the best way to go lol.

The last line of his PowerShell script calls cmd. XD

Thank u for this great info joe

It was pretty informative! The only reason I still prefer the cmd/batch language instead of powershell (excluding backwards compatibility), is loading times (and maybe resource consumtion). If you are using VMs or for whatever reason your PC is lagging, powershell takes ages to load up, while simple cmd starts in seconds. Thanks for the video!

12:06 This is false. You have to put youtube-dl in path and then you can run youtube-dl or any other command line tool. Or you can use a package manager like Scoop to install youtube-dl.

Piping works in cmd too btw. Also you can just type powershell in the command prompt to get it.

I like your Onkyo surround speaker set-up in your living room, very cool.

Very interesting! Thanks a lot for this video!

Lol I feel so old having my CMD pinned on my task bar.

CMD? - Nah... Power shell? - WHY?! bash? - Yeah... :D

I just wanna make it clear to you friend (but please DON'T GET ME WRONG!) The Command prompt isn't JUST a tool for the old dos command that are basically for navigating through the operating system. You can actually use extensions that makes it a reliable tool for programming. I actually use it to code with python.

Exactly the video I needed!

command prompt has had pipes since before Windows was even invented. this feature has probably existed since MS-DOS 1.0

Technically, PowerShell is a .NET language, like C#, so all "objects" are .NET objects, and you can therefore use .NET objects directly in scripts. And that is also how PowerShell is cross-platform nowadays 🙂

Thank you so much for sharing this content.. the video was just awesome.

Thanks. The video was inspiring!

10:14 Not accurate enough Command Prompt can run .bat and .cmd PowerShell can run .bat , .cmd and .ps1

Cmd: Basically DOS in Windows NT Powershell: If DOS and BASH had a baby.

This answered my question, thank you

Get-Alias in Powershell is one I'll keep in mind. Thank you 👍

Ngl he kinda scared me when he popped out from behind the couch

since powershell can run on windows and linux the ./ is b/c of the way files are run in linux

Powershell: Offers object oriented type commands (cmdlet) wich helps programmers the task of scripting and data formatting. On the contraire command prompt is basically powershell without cmdlets. Useful commands to start: get-command get-help get-member With this three commands you are good to go and learn Powerhell by yourself

"PowerShell attempts to protect you from doing things unintentionally in two main ways: Requirement to run scripts by using a full path or relative path: When you run a script, you always need to provide the script's path. Providing the path helps you to know exactly what you're running. For example, there could be commands and aliases on your computer you don't intend to run, but that have the same name as your script. Including the path provides an extra check to ensure you run exactly what you want to run." - Microsoft Site (I cut the second one)

Command prompt > powershell

MS-DOS - The real performer PowerShell - MS-DOS in drag Cmdlets - drag accessories

You've come a long way from the kid making spoof how to videos all those years ago. Didnt think you would be able to transition to a real channel, but kudos to you. You did it, and well. Great video

Also, to make things more confusing, there is _Windows PowerShell,_ which is no longer updated since version 5.1, and there is what used to be called _PowerShell Core,_ nowadays simply _PowerShell,_ which has received multiple important updates for bug-/security fixes and new/extended features, and is in active development. So you might come across a PS script and wonder "Why isn't this working for me?" -- you might have to install the new, shiny PowerShell instead of the old Windows PowerShell.

meanwhile me using zsh:

But powershell requires .NET framework => slow startup Microsoft removing CMD soon? Gonna switch fully to yori

Thank you. I have used Linux Mint on my pc for years, and I have just bought a Win 10 laptop. This makes me feel at home more.

A couple things from a Systems Engineer. You're correct in saying that PowerShell can do everything cmd can do to an extent. There are things that cmd can do that PowerShell can't and vice versa. For example, if you right click on a shortcut and go to properties under "Target" if you need to add a parameter or switch to the exe that's all in cmd syntax. Also automating the installation of MSI files is typically done via CMD syntax. Great video though. Well explained

Hey, don't knock GoTo! Back in the days before Win95, I wrote a fairly complex (for the day) batch file that loaded on boot to more easily play DOS games so we didn't have to waste memory loading Windows and then the game. I made good use of If, error codes, and GoTo to make that work with all the games we had. Even today, GoTo is very handy to have in VBScript heavy Access Databases. Can't write 3,000 lines of script without throwing in a few GoTos.

You can use pipe and nested if's both in Command shell and Powershell. Powershell works on objects being passed between commandlets as you State while Command shell pipes pass text from one command to the next just like Linux/Unix, i.e. the command need to parse the text. -eq and ./ is the Linux bash(1) way of doing things. Cleaner and safer.

You CAN write scripts for the traditional "Command Prompt" - Batch files are a thing. "pipes" are also a thing in Command Prompt.

I tend to use Cmd for simple manual stuff, I've done "for ages". Sometimes making *.bat for repeated simple tasks. If I know how to, and think is easy using CMD or *.bat, that's usually my "go to". As soon as there are more complex things, I rather figure out how to using PowerShell, and probably using script, to reuse next time.