Determine installed PowerShell version

Question

How can I determine what version of PowerShell is installed on a computer  and indeed if it is installed at all

User · Answer

I needed to check the version of PowerShell and then run the appropriate code. Some of our servers run v5, and others v4. This means that some functions, like compress, may or may not be available.

This is my solution:

if ($PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major -eq 5) {
    #Execute code available in PowerShell 5, like Compress
    Write-Host "You are running PowerShell version 5"
}
else {
    #Use a different process
    Write-Host "This is version $PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major"
}

User · Answer

To check if PowerShell is installed use   HKLM Software Microsoft PowerShell 1 Install     1     To check if RC2 or RTM is installed use   HKLM Software Microsoft PowerShell 1 PID   89393-100-0001260-00301  -- For RC2 HKLM Software Microsoft PowerShell 1 PID   89393-100-0001260-04309  -- For RTM   Source  this website

User · Answer

You can also call the  host  command from the PowerShell commandline  It should give you the value of the  host variable

User · Answer

I would use either Get-Host or  PSVersionTable   As Andy Schneider points out   PSVersionTable doesn t work in version 1  it was introduced in version 2   get-host  Name               ConsoleHost Version            2 0 InstanceId         d730016e-2875-4b57-9cd6-d32c8b71e18a UI                 System Management Automation Internal Host InternalHostUserInterface CurrentCulture     en-GB CurrentUICulture   en-US PrivateData        Microsoft PowerShell ConsoleHost ConsoleColorProxy IsRunspacePushed   False Runspace           System Management Automation Runspaces LocalRunspace   PSVersionTable  Name                           Value ----                           ----- CLRVersion                     2 0 50727 4200 BuildVersion                   6 0 6002 18111 PSVersion                      2 0 WSManStackVersion              2 0 PSCompatibleVersions            1 0  2 0  SerializationVersion           1 1 0 1 PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2 1

User · Answer

You can look at the built in variable   psversiontable  If it doesn t exist  you have V1  If it does exist  it will give you all the info you need   1  gt    psversiontable  Name                           Value                                            ----                           -----                                            CLRVersion                     2 0 50727 4927                                   BuildVersion                   6 1 7600 16385                                   PSVersion                      2 0                                              WSManStackVersion              2 0                                              PSCompatibleVersions            1 0  2 0                                        SerializationVersion           1 1 0 1                                          PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2 1

User · Answer

Microsoft s recommended forward compatible method for checking if PowerShell is installed and determining the installed version is to look at two specific registry keys  I ve reproduced the details here in case the link breaks   According to the linked page      Depending on any other registry key s   or version of PowerShell exe or the location of PowerShell exe is not guaranteed to work in the long term    To check if any version of PowerShell is installed  check for the following value in the registry    Key Location  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft PowerShell 1 Value Name  Install Value Type  REG DWORD Value Data  0x00000001  1   To check whether version 1 0 or 2 0 of PowerShell is installed  check for the following value in the registry    Key Location  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft PowerShell 1 PowerShellEngine Value Name  PowerShellVersion Value Type  REG SZ Value Data   lt 1 0   2 0

User · Answer

You can directly check the version with one line only by invoking PowerShell externally  such as from Command Prompt  powershell -Command   PSVersionTable PSVersion    According to  psaul you can actually have one command that is agnostic from where it came  CMD  PowerShell or Pwsh   Thank you for that   powershell -command   Get-Variable PSVersionTable -ValueOnly  PSVersion    I ve tested and it worked flawlessly on both CMD and PowerShell

User · Answer

Extending the answer with a select operator   Get-Host   select     Version

User · Answer

I have made a small batch script that can determine PowerShell version    echo off for  f  tokens 2 delims      a in   powershell -Command Get-Host    findstr  c Version   do  echo   a    This simply extracts the version of PowerShell using Get-Host and searches the string Version  When the line with the version is found  it uses the for command to extract the version  In this case we are saying that the delimiter is a colon and search next the first colon  resulting in my case 5 1 18362 752

User · Answer

I tried this on version 7 1 0 and it worked   PSVersionTable   Select-Object PSVersion  Output PSVersion --------- 7 1 0  It doesn t work on version 5 1 though  so rather go for this on versions below 7   PSVersionTable PSVersion  Output Major  Minor  Build  Revision -----  -----  -----  -------- 5      1      18362  1171

User · Answer

Since the most helpful answer didn t address the if exists portion  I thought I d give one take on it via a quick-and-dirty solution  It relies on PowerShell being in the path environment variable which is likely what you want   Hat tip to the top answer as I didn t know that   Paste this into a text file and name it     Test Powershell Version cmd   or similar    echo off echo Checking powershell version    del   temp  PSVers txt  2 gt nul powershell -command   string  PSVersionTable PSVersion Major        string  PSVersionTable PSVersion Minor   Out-File   string  cat env  temp      PSVers txt    2 gt nul if errorlevel 1    echo Powershell is not installed  Please install it from download Microsoft com  thanks    else    echo You have installed Powershell version   type   temp  PSVers txt   del   temp  PSVers txt  2 gt nul   timeout 15

User · Answer

The below  cmdlet will return the PowerShell version    PSVersionTable PSVersion Major

User · Answer

I found the easiest way to check if installed was to    run a command prompt  Start  Run  cmd  then OK  type powershell then hit return   You should then get the PowerShell PS prompt      C  Users MyUser gt powershell  Windows PowerShell Copyright  C  2009 Microsoft Corporation  All rights reserved   PS C  Users MyUser gt    You can then check the version from the PowerShell prompt by typing  PSVersionTable PSVersion   PS C  Users MyUser gt   PSVersionTable PSVersion  Major  Minor  Build  Revision -----  -----  -----  -------- 2      0      -1     -1  PS C  Users MyUser gt    Type exit if you want to go back to the command prompt  exit again if you want to also close the command prompt    To run scripts  see http   ss64 com ps syntax-run html

User · Answer

To determine if PowerShell is installed  you can check the registry for the existence of   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE Software Microsoft PowerShell 1 Install   and  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft PowerShell 3   and  if it exists  whether the value is 1  for installed   as detailed in the blog post Check if PowerShell installed and version   To determine the version of PowerShell that is installed  you can check the registry keys   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft PowerShell 1 PowerShellEngine PowerShellVersion   and  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft PowerShell 3 PowerShellEngine PowerShellVersion   To determine the version of PowerShell that is installed from a  ps1 script  you can use the following one-liner  as detailed on PowerShell com in Which PowerShell Version Am I Running    isV2   test-path variable  psversiontable   The same site also gives a function to return the version   function Get-PSVersion       if  test-path variable psversiontable    psversiontable psversion  else   version  1 0 0 0

User · Answer

The easiest way to forget this page and never return to it is to learn the Get-Variable    Get-Variable   where     Name -Like   version           0  Value    There is no need to remember every variable  Just Get-Variable is enough  and  There should be something about version

User · Answer

This is the top search result for  Batch file get powershell version   so I d like to provide a basic example of how to do conditional flow in a batch file depending on the powershell version  Generic example    powershell  exit  PSVersionTable PSVersion Major  if  errorlevel  GEQ 5       echo Do some fancy stuff that only powershell v5 or higher supports   else       echo Functionality not support by current powershell version      Real world example  powershell  exit  PSVersionTable PSVersion Major  if  errorlevel  GEQ 5       rem Unzip archive automatically     powershell Expand-Archive Compressed zip   else       rem Make the user unzip  because lazy     echo Please unzip Compressed zip prior to continuing        pause

User · Answer

Use    psVersion    PSVersionTable PSVersion If   psVersion         PowerShell Version Mapping      psVersionMappings            psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 1 14393 0  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 1 Preview  ApplicableOS  Windows 10 Anniversary Update        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 1 14300 1000  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 1 Preview  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 10586 494  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 RTM  ApplicableOS  Windows 10 1511   KB3172985 1607        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 10586 122  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 RTM  ApplicableOS  Windows 10 1511   KB3140743 1603        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 10586 117  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 RTM 1602  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2012 R2  Windows Server 2012  Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1  Windows 8 1  and Windows 7 SP1        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 10586 63  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 RTM  ApplicableOS  Windows 10 1511   KB3135173 1602        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 10586 51  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 RTM 1512  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2012 R2  Windows Server 2012  Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1  Windows 8 1  and Windows 7 SP1        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 10514 6  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 Production Preview 1508  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2012 R2        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 10018 0  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 Preview 1502  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2012 R2        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  5 0 9883 0  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 5 Preview November 2014  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2012 R2  Windows Server 2012  Windows 8 1        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  4 0  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 4 RTM  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2012 R2  Windows Server 2012  Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1  Windows 8 1  and Windows 7 SP1        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  3 0  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 3 RTM  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2012  Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1  Windows 8  and Windows 7 SP1        psVersionMappings    New-Object PSObject -Property   Name  2 0  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 2 RTM  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and Windows 7       foreach   psVersionMapping in  psVersionMappings                If   psVersion -ge  psVersionMapping Name                  CurrentVersion  psVersion FriendlyName  psVersionMapping FriendlyName ApplicableOS  psVersionMapping ApplicableOS              Break                   Else        CurrentVersion  1 0  FriendlyName  Windows PowerShell 1 RTM  ApplicableOS  Windows Server 2008  Windows Server 2003  Windows Vista  Windows XP       You can download the detailed script from How to determine installed PowerShell version

User · Answer

host version is just plain wrong unreliable  This gives you the version of the hosting executable  powershell exe  powergui exe  powershell ise exe  powershellplus exe etc  and not the version of the engine itself   The engine version is contained in  psversiontable psversion  For PowerShell 1 0  this variable does not exist  so obviously if this variable is not available it is entirely safe to assume the engine is 1 0  obviously

User · Answer

Use  PSVersionTable PSVersion to determine the engine version  If the variable does not exist  it is safe to assume the engine is version 1 0   Note that  Host Version and  Get-Host  Version are not reliable - they reflect the version of the host only  not the engine  PowerGUI  PowerShellPLUS  etc  are all hosting applications  and they will set the host s version to reflect their product version nbsp  mdash  which is entirely correct  but not what you re looking for   PS C   gt   PSVersionTable PSVersion  Major  Minor  Build  Revision -----  -----  -----  -------- 4      0      -1     -1

User · Answer

You can verify that Windows PowerShell version installed by completing the following check    Click Start  click All Programs  click Accessories  click Windows PowerShell  and then click Windows PowerShell  In the Windows PowerShell console  type the following command at the command prompt and then press ENTER   Get-Host   Select-Object Version    You will see output that looks like this   Version ------- 3 0   http   www myerrorsandmysolutions com how-to-verify-the-windows-powershell-version-installed

[powershell] Determine installed PowerShell version

Examples related to powershell