"In computer science, a shell is a user interface that gives you access to various services of an operating system. A shell can be command-line based or it can include a graphical user interface /GUI). Windows PowerShell is a shell developed by Microsoft for purposes of task automation and configuration management. This powerful shell is based on the .NET framework and it includes a command-line shell and scripting language. On top of the standard command-line shell, you can also find the Windows PowerShell ISE. ISE stands for Integrated Scripting Environment, and it is a graphical user interface that allows you to easily create different scripts without having to type all the commands in the command line. To give you an idea of how powerful PowerShell really is, it should be enough to keep in mind that it has been used across the entire Microsoft ecosystem ever since Windows NT 4.0 for all types of operations."--Back cover.