What is the difference between Command Prompt and PowerShell in Windows.

CMD Vs PowerShell

If you ever use Command Prompt and PowerShell then you may notice, there are some similar instructions for Command Prompt and PowerShell. Now, the question may come to your mind that what is the difference between these two, and when or why should you use one over the other? Here in this post, we are going to answer this question.

Before going through the difference, let’s take a look at the history and evolution of Command Prompt and PowerShell.

History of Command Prompt and PowerShell.

The Command Prompt has been around for a lot longer than PowerShell. In fact, it first appeared in Microsoft’s DOS (MS-DOS) operating system in 1980, which means it even predates Windows.  Indeed, in those days the Command Prompt was typically the first and only thing a user would see when they switched on a PC.

Windows came along in 1985 and initially ran ‘on top’ of DOS. A little later, with the introduction of Windows 2.0 in 1987, Microsoft added the ability to access Command Prompt from within Windows.

As a result, much Computeractive staff, and pretty much anyone else who grew up with the PC industry has a lot of affection for Command Prompt.

PowerShell arrived with Windows Vista back in 2006. It supports almost all the same instructions as Command Prompt options with their PowerShell equivalents in the Windows key+X Quick Line menu when it introduced Windows 10 Creators Editions (1703). 

Difference between Command Prompt and PowerShell.

One key difference between the two is that PowerShell allows the execution of complicated scripts called ‘cmdlets’ (pronounced ‘commandlets’). Most Windows users will probably never need to run cmdlets, which is another reason why we sometimes suggest Command Prompt instead, because it executes the tasks it has always done, quickly, and effectively.

PowerShell can interpret both Batch commands and PowerShell commands, where the Command Prompt can only interpret the Batch commands.

The output generated in PowerShell is not just a stream of text but a collection of object where the output generated in Command Prompt is just a stream of text.

So, these are some differences between the PowerShell and Command Prompt. PowerShell has a much more powerful command-line environment than the Command Prompt.

How To Access Command History of Command Prompt in Windows 7, 8.1, & 10

Windows Command Prompt is a tool used to give instructions to the system. It is used in troubleshooting the issue and can perform all sorts of functions.

One of the drawbacks of using Command Prompt is that some commands can stretch to many characters, making it easy for mistakes to slip in.

You can use the arrow keys to cycle through and repeat past commands, but repeatedly tapping the up key to find the one you’re after takes time.

Quickly Access the Past commands of Windows Command Prompt.

A quicker way to access past commands is by pressing F7 (Fn + F7). A box will then appear, listing all your previous commands. You can now browse the list more easily using the arrow keys.

Past commands of Command Prompt

If you spend a lot of time in Command Prompt, you can extend the default 50-command history. 

To do this, right-click the Command Prompt window’s title bar, select Properties. 

Command Prompt Properties

Then move to the Options tab. In the Command History section, change the Buffer Size accordingly.

Command History

You can choose to save up to 999 past commands, but be aware the command history is lost when you close the Command Prompt window. 

How To Select Multiple Items Faster In Windows.

There are many purposes for which we have to select multiple items in Windows 10, for copying, moving, or deleting multiple items at a time.

To copy, move or delete a number of files in a folder, most of the people will hold down the Ctrl key and select them using the mouse button.

However, it’s all too easy to accidentally click the wrong files, especially if you’re viewing them as file names rather than large icons. There’s an easier way that involves using your keyboard instead of your mouse.

To do this, hold the Ctrl key and select the first file with your mouse in the normal way. But instead of using the mouse to highlight the other files, keep the Ctrl key held down, use arrow keys to move to the next file, then press Space to select it.

Select Multiple Files in Windows 10

If you accidentally select a file you don’t want to include, return to it using the arrow keys, then press Space again.

You need to hold down the Ctrl key at all times while selecting files. If you release it and select another file, your previous selection will be lost.  

How To Speed Up the Firefox Browser to Browse Faster.

Speed Up Firefox Browser

Firefox is the second most famous browser after Google Chrome and we all use either any one of these. But the main question is which one is better and faster. Although we are not going to compare the browsers in this post.

In this post we are going to three tips by which you can speed up your Firefox browser.

3 Tweaks for Firefox browser to make it faster.

• Firefox’s hidden TCP Fast Open settings may make pages load faster in Firefox.
• Toggle hardware acceleration settings to get the right balance between speed and memory.
• Free up Firefox memory by running the garbage collection.

Also Read: How To Make Microsoft Edge Run Faster.

Also Read: How To Speed Up Google Chrome Browser.

01. Enable TCP Fast Open to make pages load faster.

TCP Fast Open (TFO) is designed to replace the old T/TCP system and speed up the opening of successive TCP connections between two endpoints. The old TCP protocol uses a “three-way handshake” (three round trips to the server). 

By combining TCP Fast Open and something called TLS False Start, the initial handshake performs all the key negotiations, so there’s just the one round trip to the server before the HTTP traffic starts. This means pages often load significantly faster. 

Google only offer the feature in its Android and Chrome OS versions (via the flag section) and Microsoft used to offer it in Edge but has since dropped it. It’s still available in Firefox. To do so-

Open the browser, type about:config into the address bar and search for tcp. 

Firefox about:config 

You’ll see a ‘network.tcp.tcp_fastopen_enable’ setting. Double-click this to enable it.

TCP Fast Open Settings

Bear in mind that TCP Fast Open is an experimental feature so you might run into problems (this is the reason it’s hard to find elsewhere).

02. Tweak Hardware settings to get a balance between speed and memory.

Firefox Quantum uses your PC’s graphics processor (GPU) to accelerate web browsing. This should make it much faster, but if you have an old or underpowered PC with no dedicated graphics card, it’s possible the opposite will be true, in which the case you might want to consider disabling this feature and seeing if that improves the situation.

To do this, click the three-line hamburger button in the top-right corner of your browser, then click Options.

Scroll down to the Performance section and untick ‘Use recommended performance settings’. Untick the ‘Use hardware acceleration when available’ box below that.

Toggle Hardware Acceleration

You can also adjust the content-process limit from here, raising or lowering it. The default is 8. The more content processes you choose, the better the performance should be when using multiple tabs. However, this also consumes more memory, which may have a negative impact on your system.

03. Speed Up Firefox by running a garbage collection to free up memory.

Firefox is a renowned memory hog and if you open a lot of tabs and rarely restart your browser, it can consume a vast amount of system RAM. 

To free up memory and speed up your browser, type about:memory into the address bar and click Enter.

The Free Memory section lets you run a global garbage collection (GC), which clears old and unused JavaScript objectives, or a cycle collection (CC), which clears web pages.

Free Up Firefox Memory

Click the ‘Minimise memory usage’ button to run both the GC and CC processes multiple times, freeing up the maximum amount of RAM.  

These three tips are enough to make your Firefox browser much faster.

How To Make Google Chrome Load Much Faster.

Make Google Chrome Fast

As in earlier days a web page is only used to contain information in the form of text. And now in this fast-growing web world and huge demand for information were everyone needed to get more and more information in a very short time, a single web page start containing information in the form of text, images and videos.

As the most famous search engine Google only takes a fraction of seconds to search your queries on the web. But sometimes your search gets to slow down due to some other technical fault and settings.

4 Simple Tips to Speed Up the  Google Chrome Browser.

As we all know that Google Chrome browser is the most popular web browser and in this post we are going to increase the browsing speed of Google Chrome browser by changing some of its settings and activating experimental tools.

01. Enable Low-End Device Mode for Google Chrome.

If your PC is underpowered, try running Chrome in Low-End Device Mode. To do so-

Right-click the icon you use to launch Chrome, and select Properties. The Target box lets you add some parameters to the browser.

In the Target box, you add some parameters to the browser. In the Target field, put a space after chrome.exe and type --enable-low-end-device-mode then click OK. This should reduce Chrome’s memory usage.

Enable Low-End-Device Mode

02. Chrome’s flags Settings to increase the loading speed of the web page.  

Most of Chrome’s hidden experimental features are on the Experiments page, which you can access by typing chrome://flags into the browser’s address bar and hitting Enter.

Although you can browse the list of flags to find the ones to change, it’s much easier to use the search box at the top and look for them by name. A number of them are worth enabling or changing.

If images are loading too slowly, find the ‘Number of raster threads’ flag and set it to 4, which is the maximum number.

Next, find the ‘Accelerated 2D canvas’ flag and make sure it’s on. This will use your graphics processor instead of software rendering.

You can have browser close tabs quicker by enabling the ‘Fast tab/window close’ flag.

The ‘Experimental QUIC protocol’ flag lets you enable the QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections) transport protocol developed by Google. This aims to speed up latency-sensitive applications such as web searches.   

When enable, the ‘NoState Prefetch’ flag can pre-download resources to improve page-load speed, while the ‘Parallel downloading’ flag accelerates downloads.

Finally, if your browser goes offline, it will auto-reload all tabs, including background ones, when it goes back online, causing congestion. Enable the ‘Only Auto-Reload Visible Tabs’ to stop this happening.

03. Use Chrome’s Secret Task Manager.

Your browser will slow down if it’s using too much memory. Chrome has a hidden Task Manager that shows which tabs and extensions are consuming the most memory and making the most demands on your processor. You can close the worst offenders yourself, or select one and click ‘End Process’.

Google Chrome Task Manager

To launch the Task Manager, press Shift + Esc. Tasks can be sorted by name, memory footprint, CPU, network or process ID.

04. Removes or Disable unwanted add-ons.

If you have a lot of add-ons installed, they could be slowing down Chrome. Removing or disabling unwanted add-ons can improve your browsing speed. To do so-

Type chrome://extensions into the address bar and disable or delete any unwanted add-ons –ones installed by third-party programs, for example.

Google Chrome Extensions

You can also install NooBoss, which makes managing dozens of extensions much easier. It displays all your installed add-ons in a pop-up panel that lets you see at a glance which extension are currently active, and remove or disable them all with a single click.

NooBoss also lets you create rules so that specific add-ons are only activated when you visit certain website- for example, an ad blocker on a particularly ad-stuffed site- which stops chrome using too much memory.

Conclusion

So, these are the 4 settings by which you can make your Google Chrome Browser load faster. Although it is not necessary to do all 4 settings, it depends on you and your browsing habit. So make all changes accordingly.