Peter Seale's weblog

Monday, January 17, 2011 4:00:00 PM UTC 

Welcome to 2011. It smells terrific here!

The problem

You may not know it, but you have a problem. You’re using the standard Windows command shell. This is a problem.

The problems are manyfold and boring, so I’ll briefly summarize:

• Cutting and pasting is a problem.
• The cmd shell’s default history is 100 lines. This is a problem.
• DOS’s autocomplete featureset predates the word intellisense. It’s bad.
• DOS hates double-quotes. A lot.
• DOS also hates the less-than/greater-than characters. Try this on: runas /user:PC\windersUser /password:”I believe in using long passphrases and good security etc and so forth so I’ll throw in some special characters, like double-quotes (“) and a bunch of other random stuff: <>file1"
• I waxed a little eloquent on the point above, and could go into futher boring detail, but just take my word for it. DOS doesn’t do windows, and DOS doesn’t escape special characters. Ever.

The solution

The solution is to launch PowerShell. For the privileged few running Windows 7, it comes pre-installed. For the rest of us, minus the crazy dude still running Windows 2000 for security/paranoia reasons, PowerShell can be downloaded.

A small aside: the Start menu in Windows 7 is excellent. I don’t maintain icons on my desktop, the quick launch, pin programs to the taskbar, clicking through the Start Menu. I just tap the Windows key and tap in a few letters. For PowerShell, WINDOWS, “p” “o” “w”, then ENTER. That’s it.

I rarely use SlickRun nowadays.

Ahem. Onward.

So now I’m running PowerShell…now what?

You get:

1. Better autocomplete, especially with file and pathnames.
2. Better default settings, including an output history that stores $HUGE_NUMBER lines.
3. A shell that doesn’t hate spaces and double-quotes, and by extension, you.
4. Little neat things, like dynamic vertical and horizontal resizing, and…
5. Easy cutting and pasting. Allow me to give a full tutorial below:

Cutting to the clipboard

Pasting to the PowerShell host

It’s The Little Things

Tonight I’m working through the Ruby koans. I know, who cares. But I’m here to tell you that, though there’s not all that much difference tonight between using the cmd shell and the PowerShell host, there’s a few little things that add up. Here’s a little thing: just now, I made this simple, tiny improvement that combined the cls command and the “run the koans” command into one line, which made iterating through the Koans that much more easier. Re-running the koans is now as easy as UPARROW, ENTER:

Footnotes

I haven’t bothered trying Console2 yet.

I know cmd.exe is technically not the DOS shell. Technically it still has all the interpreter problems DOS 3.3 had, so I’m calling it DOS, plus the full name for the built-in shell is probably something like Microsoft Windows Command Shell 2011 for the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System Administration Pack R2 (KB994112). I just made that up, but if you think the name is a total exaggeration, go research why we call “VSTO” by a four-letter acronym.

Running cmd.exe inside PowerShell (strictly for the lazy)

If you love everything I’ve said, but can’t summon the mental energy to learn remedial PowerShell, that’s okay. You can still gain some benefit from the PowerShell host running the DOS command shell! Just type “cmd<ENTER>” at the prompt, to roll into the land of LEGACY.