Windows PowerShell RC2 FAQs

PowerShell Team

Since the release of Windows PowerShell RC2, we’ve been receiving many questions around some of the changes from previous versions of PowerShell to RC2. To help clear up and confusion, I’ve taken the most common questions I’ve been hearing and have answered each below.

Q: Which platforms are supported for PowerShell RC2?

 

PowerShell RC2 is currently available on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 in both 32bit and 64bit versions. A version of PowerShell for Vista is currently under development.

 

Q: What languages are supported by PowerShell RC2?

 

Windows PowerShell RC2 is the first version of PowerShell to be released in all of our final localized languages, namely: Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Russian.

 

PowerShell is available as both a single localized package in the language of choice, as well as a Multilingual User Interface (MUI) package which can be installed on English MUI-enabled systems to install all PowerShell supported languages simultaneously.

 

Q: Windows Powershell has disappeared from Add/Remove Programs! How do I remove it?

 

Windows PowerShell is considered an update to Windows. To display its entry within Add/Remove Programs, you must check the “Display Updates” checkbox at the top of the window.

 

Q: I’m a software developer and reference the Windows PowerShell assemblies. I cannot find them now. Where are they installed?

 

For increased performance in RC2, Windows PowerShell now GACs and NGENs its assemblies. These assemblies no longer reside directly on the filesystem, but live inside the GAC. The PowerShell reference assemblies for developers are now packaged as part of the Windows SDK along with the rest of our developer tools and documentation.

 

Q: Where is Windows PowerShell installed?

 

Windows PowerShell installs to %systemroot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\V1.0.

 

On 64bit machines, Windows PowerShell installs the 64bit executable in %systemroot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\V1.0 and the 32bit executable in %systemroot%\Syswow64\WindowsPowerShell\V1.0

 

These changes were done to enable Windows PowerShell to be integrated in with the default OS install at a later date.

 

Q: Where are the Windows PowerShell Profile files stored?

 

In a change from RC1, the PowerShell profile files are now stored two locations:

 

User-specific profiles are now stored in <My Documents>\WindowsPowerShell

 

Machine-wide profiles are stored in the PowerShell Install Directories (see the answer to the question above). Note that this means you can have separate machine-wide profiles for 32bit and 64bit instances of PowerShell.

 

Why these locations? I was going to write up a long summary post of our many in depth conversations, but Lee Holmes has helpfully beat me to the punch. You can learn all about the rationale for these changes on his blog: http://www.leeholmes.com/blog/TheStoryBehindTheNamingAndLocationOfPowerShellProfiles.aspx

 

Hopefully this helps to answer some of the questions you may have had with the recent changes in Windows PowerShell RC2. If you have any additional questions, please post a comment here on the blog.

 

Leonard Chung

Program Manager – Windows PowerShell & Microsoft Management Console (MMC)

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