why is the powershell i can open from the run box not the same thing i can open from the start menu?

Question

If I WinKey + R to open the run box and type powershell it works to some extent as it opens up a command line box. However, this windows doesn't behave like the powershell I can open from Start > All Programs > Accessories > Windows PowerShell. It's the wrong colour, and I can't highlight text the same way I can in my Start Menu powershell.

Why would these be different? Why would my 'Run' powershell not work the same way as my 'start' powershell? And how can I make it so they do?

Running Win7 Home Premium, but reproduced the problem on several different editions.

Answer 1

When you access PowerShell from Win+r, you are running powerhshell.exe directly with the default settings. You change these default settings by pressing Alt+space+p while PowerShell is running.

When you access PowerShell from the Start Menu, you are launching a shortcut to powershell.exe that has pre-defined view settings already configured. To modify these settings, right-click the Start Menu shortcut, and select Properties. You can adjust the default view settings for PowerShell when launched specifically by this shortcut in the Options, Font, Layout, and Color tabs.

To answer why is fairly subjective. Most users likely access PowerShell from the Run... menu and can quickly set up their own default view options from a clean slate. For the less-frequent users who access PowerShell from the Start Menu, Microsoft provides some popular/common view settings to help get people started.