How to install windows powershell

PowerShell is a really useful tool if you know your way around it. Here’s how to get it, or update it if you already have it.

Windows PowerShell is a command-line tool developed by Microsoft that helps you automate mundane tasks on your system. If you’re an avid Windows user who uses PowerShell on a regular basis, you’ll want to use the most recent version of the tool.

There are several ways to install or update PowerShell on Windows 11. In this article, we take a look at all of them.

1. How to Install or Update PowerShell With the Winget Command

The Windows Package Manager (or Winget) is a command-line program that you can use to install apps on Windows. This eliminates the need to search for the app on the web and go through the tedious installation process.

Using the Winget command is one of the most straightforward ways to install or update PowerShell in Windows 11. Here are the steps you can follow.

1. Click the magnifying glass on the taskbar or press Win + S to open the search menu.
2. Type Command Prompt in the search box at the top.
3. Select Run as administrator to open Command Prompt with administrative privileges.
4. Select Yes when the User Account Control (UAC) prompt appears.
5. Paste the following command in the console and press Enter to view all the available versions of the PowerShell app.

    winget search PowerShell 

6. Note down the ID associated with the PowerShell app you want to get.
7. Run the following command to install the PowerShell app.

    winget install AppID 

   

Replace AppID in the above command with the actual app ID noted in the last step.

Wait for Winget to download and install PowerShell on your PC and then exit the terminal window. Following that, the PowerShell app should be available for use.

Conveniently, the Winget command also lets you install multiple apps at once. If you want to learn how, check our guide on how to batch-install multiple software packages in Windows 11.

2. How to Install or Update PowerShell From GitHub

Another way to install or update PowerShell on Windows is to download its installer package from the GitHub website. Here’s how you can go about it.

1. Open up your preferred web browser and navigate to GitHub’s PowerShell page.
2. Select the latest PowerShell version from the GitHub page.
3. Scroll down the Assets section and download the MSI file on your PC.
4. Open the installer package and click Next.
   
5. Specify the installation folder and click Next.
6. Click Next again.
7. Check the boxes that read Enable updating PowerShell through Microsoft Update or WSUS and Use Microsoft Update when I check for updates. Then, click Next.
   
8. Click the Install button and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.

And that’s about it. Once you complete the above steps, you’ll have the latest version of PowerShell at your disposal.

3. How to Install or Update PowerShell Using the Microsoft Store

The PowerShell app is also available on Microsoft Store. To install or update the PowerShell app using Microsoft Store, use the following steps:

1. Open the Microsoft Store app on your PC.
2. Use the search bar at the top to locate the PowerShell app on the store.
3. Click the Update button to update the PowerShell app. If you don’t have the app, click the Install button to get it.
   

If you’re having trouble opening the Microsoft Store app on your Windows 11, fix it so that you can update your apps easily.

Automate Your Tasks With PowerShell

Using the most recent version of PowerShell should give you access to the latest features. You can use any of the methods you like to install or update PowerShell on Windows 11.

Now that you’ve got the latest version of PowerShell, why not learn some alternative ways to open it on your Windows PC?

PowerShell 7 is the new cross-platform version of PowerShell and can be installed on a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, Linux, MacOS.

Installation takes just a few seconds. PowerShell 7 has grown up considerably: while it can’t (yet) do everything that is possible in Windows PowerShell, it might be a fast alternative to the automation tasks it can handle, and a good start to get used to it.

Quick Words

PowerShell 7 is built on the cross-platform .NET Core. This ensures that it is available across platforms, but is also the reason why PowerShell 7 currently does not support all PowerShell Modules and may lack certain capabilities.

It currently does not support window elements (and as such does not include Out-GridView either). Also older PowerShell Modules might not yet be compatible. That said, it is impressive how compatible PowerShell 7 still is.

Because of the potential incompatibilities, PowerShell 7 uses its own module paths (take a look at $env:psmodulepath). You may need to install modules again using Install-Module from within PowerShell 7, or manually copy compatible modules.

Installing on Windows

Use the existing Windows PowerShell to download the official installation script from Microsoft, turn it into a function, then use it to download and install PowerShell Core.

PowerShell Core is a portable app and won’t interfere with the existing Windows PowerShell installation. After you installed PowerShell Core, you simply have two PowerShell environments run powershell.exe to open the cozy Windows PowerShell, and run pwsh.exe to launch the new PowerShell Core.

# download the installation code
$code = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri https://aka.ms/install-powershell.ps1
# turn it into a function
$null = New-Item -Path function:Install-PowerShell -Value $code
# run the function
Install-PowerShell -UseMSI -Preview

Install-PowerShell downloads and installs the appropriate version for you. Above script downloads and installs the latest preview version via MSI Installer. Remove -Preview to get the latest official and stable release.

Test-Drive the Preview

Most of the exciting new features surface in PowerShell 7. This version is not yet released as I write this, so if you want to play with the “new” PowerShell, I strongly recommend that you test-drive the latest preview release by using the parameter -Preview.

Launching PowerShell

Once PowerShell is installed, you can launch it via pwsh, for example from within your PowerShell Console:

If Windows PowerShell can’t find the command, then you may have opted out to add the path to PowerShell to your $env:path environment variable. In this case, you need to specify the full absolute path to pwsh.exe.

Check $env:path

To check whether pwsh.exe was added to the environment variable, run this:

This lists all folders that Windows searches when you specify an executable without full path. There should be an entry like this:

C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7-preview\preview

Installing On Linux

To install PowerShell on Linux, run this line:

wget https://aka.ms/install-powershell.sh; sudo bash install-powershell.sh -preview; rm install-powershell.sh

Contributing

PowerShell is driven by a vibrant community. It is open-source, and you should visit github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell as a starting point.

Look at the source code, contribute yourself by working on the code, or report bugs or submit feature requests and new ideas here.

Before you file any of these, you should take a minute and browse through the existing submissions and make sure you are not producing duplicate effort.