Steps to attempt
- Run in admin shell
notepad $Profile
- If fails, in admin shell
New-Item -ItemType File -Path $PROFILE -Forcenotepad $Profile
- If fails (unlikely) still in admin shell
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned- Go to step 1
Leveling up PowerShell Profile
What can I use the $PSHome 'profile.ps1' for in regular PowerShell? (Not ISE)
Videos
The answer from harrymc is mostly right, except Microsoft has changed things and moves things around and doesn't update their documentation.
Try this to understand your Powershell "profile" scripts:
PS C:\Users\you> $PROFILE | select-object *
The output will be something like:
AllUsersAllHosts : C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\profile.ps1
AllUsersCurrentHost : C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
CurrentUserAllHosts : C:\Users\you\OneDrive\Documents\PowerShell\profile.ps1
CurrentUserCurrentHost : C:\Users\you\OneDrive\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
Length : 77
This tells you where the profiles are, for you.
The blog post you have found is from 2012 and refers to an older version of Windows. While most of it is still correct, the profile folders are not up to date.
The article you found is more recent from 2023, so is to be
taken seriously.
The "Current user, Current Host" profile location is said to
be in $HOME\Documents\PowerShell, which refers to
C:\Users\USER-NAME\Documents\PowerShell.
If you install OneDrive, it will by default backup the
Documents folder, by relocating it into the OneDrive
sync folder and leaving only a pointer to it in
C:\Users\USER-NAME.
This means that, if you have accepted the default setup of OneDrive, your PowerShell profiles are by default synced to OneDrive, but your reference is to a local folder. The profiles will be backed up to OneDrive, but the reference should stay to the local disk, not to the OneDrive folder in the cloud, to avoid problems when there is no internet connection.
Hello PowerShell Enthusiasts 👋,
Many people treat their shell as just a script runner, but as someone who loves PowerShell and runs it on all their machines (Windows, Mac, and Linux), I wanted to share all the amazing things you can do with it beyond just running scripts.
https://blog.belibug.com/post/ps-profile-01/
My latest blog post has several not-so-common ways to elevate your PowerShell experience for beginners. It covers:
-
Personalizing your prompt
-
Mastering aliases and modules
-
Leveraging tab completion
-
Enhancing your shell with modules
-
...and much more!
This list is just the tip of the iceberg! If you have any other PowerShell tricks or tips that I haven't covered, or there is better way to do it, let me know – I'm always eager to learn and will update content accordingly 😊 Happy weekend!
PS: Don't let the length scare you off! Use the handy TOC in the blog to jump around to the juicy bits that interest you most. Happy reading! 🤓
Hi All,
I'm familiar with using a PowerShell ISE 'profile file' in which to store useful settings and content you'd like available across PowerShell ISE sessions on a given host.
In this instance, that file has the standard name 'Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1'.
Almost my entire PowerShell experience to date has been limited to using PowerShell ISE. If I would like to make similar chunks of code available to myself using regular Non-ISE PowerShell, I would have thought I could create a file with name 'profile.ps1' and put it in the location defined by $PSHOME.
I tried that, but I can't see a sign that PowerShell is 'recognising' the file I placed there.
I'm assuming I'm missing something key in terms of differences between PowerShell.exe and PowerShell ISE. Is there anything equivalent to non-ISE PowerShell in terms of 'profile files' or similar?
The easiest solution is to
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
but that will run all scripts that are on the local disk (and are not in a Remote zone - like downloaded via IE)
By default Powershell restricts you from running "unsafe" scripts. Run the get-executionpolicy command to see what your system's level is at. To lower the restriction you can run Set-ExecutionPolicy and give it one of these as a parameter:
- Restricted – No scripts can be run. Windows PowerShell can be used only in interactive mode.
- AllSigned – Only scripts signed by a trusted publisher can be run.
- RemoteSigned – Downloaded scripts must be signed by a trusted publisher before they can be run.
- Unrestricted – No restrictions; all Windows PowerShell scripts can be run.
Also have a read of Scott Hanselman's words of wisdom on signing Powershell scripts.