What is the difference between Anaconda Prompt and Anaconda Powershell Prompt?

Question

I am learning Python using Anaconda. Earlier I had only Anaconda Prompt. But after recent update of Anaconda through

conda update conda

I came to see Anaconda Powershell Prompt. Few commands I tried in new Powershell Prompt which I used to do earlier in Anaconda Prompt. These commands worked fine.

Now, my question is what is the reason behind giving 2 command prompts by Anaconda? Is there any difference between their functionalities or capabilities?

My OS is Windows 7 and Conda version is 4.6.12.

Answer 1

First, for everything from executing python related commands (python, ipython, jupyter, conda, etc.) to running Python scripts (e.g. python helloworld.py), there is no difference. So there is no worry ;)

And then, the only difference, as the name suggests, is the windows shell environment in which you running conda commands: cmd.exe (Command Prompt) vs powershell.exe.

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Now let's talk a bit more about the difference: (reference)

Briefly, the cmd.exe is a simple shell introduced with Windows NT with the same basic syntax and functionality as DOS. It has relatively limited capabilities, especially when compared to Unix/Linux shells.

And PowerShell is a modern shell implementation with all sorts of extra goodies (e.g. commands colorful highlight).

So, in Anaconda Powershell Prompt, you can run some powershell commands like these:

> $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      5.1.18362.752
PSEdition                      Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion                   10.0.18362.752
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion              3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1

> $env:PATH
C:\Users\user-name\anaconda3;C:\Users\user-name\anaconda3\Library\mingw-w64\bin;...

But in Anaconda Prompt, above commands would not be recognized, you can run this though:

>ver

Microsoft Windows [版本 10.0.18363.815]

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And under the hood, Anaconda Powershell Prompt and Anaconda Prompt just two shortcuts invoking different commands:

%windir%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -NoExit -Command "& '%USERPROFILE%\anaconda3\shell\condabin\conda-hook.ps1' ; conda activate '%USERPROFILE%\anaconda3' "

%windir%\System32\cmd.exe "/K" %USERPROFILE%\anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat %USERPROFILE%\anaconda3

Answer 2

Windows offers two command line environments, the traditional "Prompt" (cmd.exe) and the newer "PowerShell". You can use Anaconda with either of these.

The documentation for Windows commands covers both.