Understanding Exit Codes 0 and 1 in PowerShell

Have you ever run a command in PowerShell and wondered if it really worked or silently failed? Exit codes give you a simple way to know what happened. They are small numbers returned by a program when it finishes, and they tell you whether the task succeeded or not.

✔️ Exit Code 0 — Success
An exit code of 0 means everything worked as expected. The command or script completed without errors. This is the standard way most programs say, “All good.”

❌ Exit Code 1 — Error
An exit code of 1 usually means something went wrong. It does not always tell you exactly what failed, but it signals that the command did not complete successfully. Different tools may use this code for different kinds of errors.

How to check the exit code in PowerShell
After running an external command, you can read the last exit code with:

$LASTEXITCODE

How to set your own exit code
In a script, you can control the result:

exit 0   # success
exit 1   # error

Understanding exit codes helps you automate tasks, detect problems early, and build more reliable scripts. Even beginners can use this small feature to make smarter decisions in their workflows.