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Basic Requirements for Shell Scripts

Remember these requirements? They apply to Windows scripts too:

1. Create a text file containing shell commands.​ Use any text editor, such as Notepad, to create the file.

2. Tell the operating system which shell to use to execute the commands. In Windows, the filename extension is used to associate a file with a program, and this mechanism is used to associate a script with a command interpreter.​ ​

  • For CMD scripts, the extension ".cmd" is used.​ For historical reasons, the extension ".bat" is also accepted.​
  • For PowerShell scripts, the extension ".ps1" is used.​ The reason that ".ps" isn't used is that that extension was already used for PostScript files.​ (As a reminder: We're not going to write PowerShell scripts in this course).​

3. Ensure that the script file has the appropriate permissions.​ On Windows, the ability to read the script file is sufficient (and this is the default permission, so no change is usually required for scripts that you create for your own use; the situation may be different for scripts that are shared to other machines over the network or to other users on your system).​