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Naming Shells and Consoles

Recently a product team asked me what entries they should put into their Program Groups folder.  They need an entry to launch their admin GUI and to launch  PowerShell with their snapin (they could do this by launching a Minishell which is a non-extensible version of PowerShell that has that products snapins baked in or they could do this by launching PowerShell specifying a console file (-PSConsoleFile ) which has their snapins).

The question was - what should they call the PowerShell link.  I thought a number of different options and then decided to look and see what the Exchange team had done.  Those guys are great so you are never wrong to go take a look at how they do things. 

Exchange has the following links in their Program Groups folder:

  • "Exchange Management Console" for their GUI (EMC)

  • "Exchange Management Shell" for their Powershell Link (EMS)

That looks like a pretty good solution to me.  Use the term "Console" for your GUI and "Shell" for your PowerShell shell.

 

So remember -the lesson for the day is:  When in doubt, see what Exchange did.  :-)

 

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
Windows Management Partner Architect
Visit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at:    http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell
Visit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at:  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx

Published Friday, July 25, 2008 4:17 PM by PowerShellTeam

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Comments

# re: Naming Shells and Consoles

Except to most developers, "Console" means console app (command prompt window class) and the shell means Windows Explorer (GUI).  So to me that seems backwards and confusing, the GUI is being called Console and the console is called Shell.

Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:22 AM by Marty

# re: Naming Shells and Consoles

@Marty

I hear what you are saying but it depends upon your starting point.  

Pre-Windows - 100% of the world would have told you that Shell is a CLI.  Today if you ask non-Windows users what a Shell is, most will tell you it is a CLI.

Since around 1996, we had MMC the MicroSoft Management Console - a GUI for doing management.

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]

Windows Management Partner Architect

Visit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at:    http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell

Visit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at:  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx

Sunday, July 27, 2008 12:11 PM by PowerShellTeam

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