Copy one block of code, paste it into PowerShell, press Enter. Twenty seconds later a fully formatted Excel compliance report appears in your Downloads folder.
In the Command Prompt lesson you learned the terminal — typing dir, cd, mkdir, rename to make the computer obey one instruction at a time. Command Prompt is where everyone begins: simple, one-line Windows commands.
Now we step up. PowerShell is the next tool on the same machine — it looks like Command Prompt but can do far more: it runs real programs, talks to applications, and builds files for you. This page is your first taste of that power.
The progression: Command Prompt runs simple commands → PowerShell runs full programs → Claude Code writes those programs for you. You are climbing one ladder.
The previous exercise renamed files. This one creates something from nothing.
You will copy the code below, paste it into PowerShell, and press Enter. Twenty seconds later a formatted Excel compliance report appears in your Downloads folder — colours, status badges, computed overdue days, summary block. Zero manual steps after pressing Enter.
No Python. No Node.js. No npm. No installs at all. PowerShell is already on your Windows machine.
Right-click inside the PowerShell window to paste. The code will appear with >> prompts as PowerShell reads each block. When it finishes pasting, press Enter once.
CA Compliance Report Generator -- Sahinov AI Training Starting Excel in the background... Building 10 tasks... ---------------------------------------------------- Saved: C:\Users\YourName\Downloads\Compliance_Report_07_Jun_2026.xlsx 10 tasks | 3 filed | 2 overdue | 5 pending ---------------------------------------------------- Excel is opening...
Excel opens automatically. Look at what the code built.
Colour coding is automatic. The code reads the status and due date for each task and applies the colour. One rule: "if overdue, apply red." The computer applied it to every qualifying row — you never touched the formatting manually.
"Days Overdue" is computed. You did not type any number. The code subtracted today's date from the due date. Tomorrow, run it again — the number updates.
The summary counted itself. You did not count how many tasks were overdue. The code counted. Add ten more tasks — the summary still counts correctly.
The filename contains today's date. You did not type the date. The code asked the system clock and used it.
In the Week 1 Wednesday session, this is how it runs live:
Open PowerShell. Copy the code. Paste. Press Enter.
Twenty seconds. Excel opens. 10 rows. Colours. Summary. Today's date in the filename.
Nothing was typed manually. The computer followed precise instructions and produced a precise output.
That is code. That is what Claude Code does. That is why you are here.
Hands-on edit: Find the line Status="Pending" for any task. Change it to "Filed". Copy the whole block again, paste into PowerShell, press Enter. Watch that row turn green and the summary count change. The code is readable instructions — not a black box.
Command Prompt (cmd.exe) runs Windows commands — copy, dir, del. It does not understand PowerShell or any programming language. If you paste this code into Command Prompt, every line is treated as a Windows command and fails.
PowerShell is a full scripting environment built into every Windows machine. It can run code, call Windows APIs, and — for this demo — speak directly to Excel's automation engine. That last part (the COM interface) is the same engine that powers Excel macros, which is why no extra software is needed.
"Build a dashboard page that shows all compliance tasks due in the next 7 days. Overdue tasks should have a red background."
Claude Code writes code that does the same thing — reads data, computes status, applies colour — except it does it for a web page in a browser instead of an Excel file.
The tool changes (PowerShell → Next.js). The principle never does.