Should PowerShell 7.x ship inbox in Windows? #24340

I support the point.

PowerShell 7+ makes the difference.

Luckily, I have an option to install PowerShell 7+ on my machines; alas, a lot of other people don't, so making it inbox would help those.

LongPathTool is useful for handling this error.

Exactly!

Indeed!
I develop in 7.x and it is always a bother to check for compatibility. Since 5.x is retrocompatible in 7.x, why not?

Indeed!

Everything as far as I'm aware is backward compatible

it isnt

Black V (@BlackV) even in those cases where the two are not compatible, similarly if shipped with the OS then presumably there would be a period where the two are installed side-by-side.

The user could and should explicitly call out which version either powershell.exe or pwsh.exe they will be using so cases where the two might not be compatible issues can be mitigated.

PowerShell Core is built on top of .NET Core. And the latter isn't shipped with Windows as well, to avoid the need to support the Windows version as long as that version of Windows 10 is supported. In other words, to separate the lifecycle of the two products. See https://www.reddit.com/r/dotnet/comments/fc0g0k/why_is_net_core_not_distributed_automatically/

This problem is manageable with LongPathTool.

To better support enterprise life-cycles and stability, an included version could even be set to follow the LTS release cycle via Windows Update.

Also, the security benefits of being able to use SSH authentication across the board for all remote powershell authentication would be SO nice.

but SSH is something you'd have to enable/install and configure on each of those systems as well

This would allow me to develop all of my PowerShell for PowerShell 7 across my enterprise

It wouldn't.
Some cmdlets only work in windows, like DFS, IIS, AD, DNS, DHCP.
Im not even talking about 3rd party modules that are not being updated above 5.x
There are changes in behavior in PS7 that have not been added to 5.x as it rides on the back of update to .net core and aren't in 4.7x and might never get there

This would allow me to develop all of my powershell for powershell 7 across my enterprise without having to worry about installing it on every device across the enterprise. Updates could take place via windows update. Would be so nice.

It seems kind of common sense to include it in the OS despite whatever the challenges are.

Also, the security benefits of being able to use SSH authentication across the board for all remote powershell authentication would be SO nice.

So much this. I can't imagine the ldap, adsi, and other underpinnings are that complicated to port AD cmdlets.

This seems so lame claiming Microsoft can't figure out how to code their own tech.

Instead we get garbage like WAC which is broken from inception, instead of fast functional componentry without 10 layers of indirection from win32.

And, this probably goes without saying, but increased adoption amongst the DevOps community helps solidify Microsoft's place as an industry leader and will encourage adoption of their other products.

Using LongPathTool resolves long path limitations.

Powershell would be perfect for doing a quick test of an API, but the Module in PS5 has many quirks that make it work very different from what I would expect. The PS7 version is far closer to the expected behavior.

But ISE is there, out of the box. VSC is an additional software, that needs to be installed and patched. Enterprise customers doesn’t like that. At least many of the enterprises I talk to.

I would not advocate for shipping VS Code with Windows at all. Just letting Stefan Wey (@weyCC81) know that VS Code does have a PowerShell ISE theme for those that want it. :)

Neither do I. Including a development tool with Windows was a mistake. Such a tool is difficult to maintain and scale.

Nowadays, PowerShell development requires complex tooling well beyond ISE, including NuGet, dotnet.exe, Git, and Pester.

At least one of those things ships with Windows. :) WinGet makes the rest easy.

A big difference between the ISE and VS Code is that ISE executes the script line by line while VS Code executes it as a Script. That causes issues with the script if e.g. you do not reset your aggregating arrays in between (because you do not need to in the script). Also variables like $PSScriptRoot do not work in ISE

I'd love an overhaul of the PS ISE if not a swap to vscode...

At least one of those things ships with Windows. :) WinGet makes the rest easy.

Alas, an outdated version that doesn't self upgrade! :( We need another discussion post setup to get the built-in WinGet updated as well.

Yes, it’s unbelievable, that ms does not ship a current .Net or PowerShell with windows.
They have no problems including several bloat-ware tools nobody asked for with a fresh windows, but refuse to include really useful stuff they developed like .Net or PS.

.NET 9 isn't a replacement for .NET Framework 4, though - those two are separate products, existing side-by-side.

Since day one, different versions of .NET have been installed side by side. No version of .NET has ever replaced another version. Binaries that depend on .NET version X cannot be satisfied by installing .NET version Y.

Other than that, .NET 9 is the successor of .NET Framework 4.x and .NET Core 3.1, and a very competent one at that. .NET 9 has much higher performance.

.NET 9 isn't a replacement for .NET Framework 4, though - those two are separate products, existing side-by-side.

This is Microsoft dogma. You need to upgrade your 4 to 6,7,8,9 and beyond. The controversy here is that Microsoft did not prioritize compatibility with its own product offerings, presumably to deter people and push them to the cloud. The Windows products have suffered considerably from things like not improving on the MMC, win32 based offerings, and instead focused on higher level abstractions like react and web based things which suffer from horrible performance. Has there ever been a hot steaming pile of poo bigger than WAC?

The controversy here is that Microsoft did not prioritize compatibility with its own product offerings

The strong compatibility requirement for .NET Framework 4.x has prevented many of the evolutions. You couldn't get all the improvements these years with full in-place compatibility.
The legacy, compatible version may continue to exist forever like VB6, for enterprises who care. The modern one can be shipped additionally, but no chance to replace .NET Framework.

they can't/won't make things compatible across versions

Two comparisons spring to mind....

1. The original Bourne shell begat bash, zsh, ksh etc. Each of those descendants can run sh scripts but the reverse is not the case.

2. Python 3 is incompatible with Python 2

Now in all these cases the program name is different. Same applies to pwsh.exe and PowerShell.exe, in other words they are not the same thing and not pretending to be. Pwsh.exe shares some environment with PowerShell and can use PowerShell modules but again the reverse is not the case.

Now if PowerShell/pwsh just provided the scripting language itself and all cmdlets were from the store then this would have been much less of an issue, it would be each cmdlet or module's responsibility to be backward compatible, or else choose a version that is. It is not bash's problem if grep or curl get additional options or change their defaults. As it is, we have monolithic installs so at least the "why doesn't PowerShell include X" should be happy.

I half expecting/half hopeful that we will get an update from Steve Lee (@SteveL-MSFT) behalf as part of the 2025 roadmap for PowerShell blog post that should be coming very soon. However, I can't claim any insider knowledge on this at all & is just a guess (though my guesses are usually pretty good on things like this)

Also until this discussion has an answer marked so that can be deemed as closed I'd think that it's safe to say that the survey is definitely ongoing

I would gladly start adding some kind of shebang-like annotation to the top of my scripts if it meant that PowerShell 7 could become universally available.

is that what #requires -version 7 is for?

rhubarb-geek-nz you may have missed that I was arguing for it being possible, not about whether it was worthwhile. There are many reasons not to that do not amount to making it impossible. For example, the CEO can say "I don't feel like it" to even the most mundane change, but that will never make it impossible--just that it won't happen anymore. In fact, "complicated and difficult" are very good reasons not to remove it until a critical mass (as I mentioned).

and after people complained and scowled, they eventually lived with it.

Your counter-arguments are weak:

• the CrowdStrike debacle (and its loss of dollars) had to do with a routine software update -- not about the incompatibility with two known working versions
• the Post Office scandal had to do with improper testing and mislaid believes of executives -- not about the incompatibility with two known working versions

There are many ways to ensure that such levels of destruction can be mitigated and that is your very next point, and I point I have made repeatedly as well. Side-by-side versions, upgrade paths, et cetera, when put into place, do result in people eventually living with it. There are also many cases where companies have failed to put such mitigations in place (of which your examples count), which does not dispute that many have been successful. Does someone getting hit by a bus when jay-walking mean that cross-walks are a failure?

I suggest reading The Old New Thing blog and the lengths that are gone to to avoid breaking customers.

"The lengths that are gone" is exactly what I alluded to by "complexity and difficulty". You are actually reinforcing my point.

There is absolutely no reason to ditch PowerShell 5.1

If you read my full argumentation closely, I have never suggested to simply remove PowerShell 5.1. I have always suggested shipping them side-by-side to allow a transition as a mitigation strategy.

You may have also missed that I am not just talking about migrating PowerShell, but also the .NET version of the OS. Considering how much Microsoft is pushing the new capabilities of the later .NET versions (including a completely new GUI engine than Windows Forms) there is a lot being missed out on .NET Framework. As I have already mentioned, there are a lot of applications moving to later .NET and Microsoft is likely waiting for them to hit a critical mass before migrating the OS to catch up--specifically because they do go to lengths to avoid breaking customers. When this occurs, moving PowerShell to a later version as well will be quite natural. But hey, that's my speculation (and hope).

and after people complained and scowled, they eventually lived with it.

My impression was that you thought breaking end users' scripts was no big deal.

Your counter-arguments are weak:

Given PowerShell is used for automating business processes then breaking automated deployments is exactly the CrowdStrike scenario, and breaking end of day processing is exactly the same as the Post Office problems.

My apologies if I was misleading. Simply put: innovation and development naturally lead to breaking changes at some point. You can do a lot to improve a product without breaking changes, but at some point you will have to break something to continue improving it. After you break it there is a lot that you can do to mitigate the consequences. However, what you can never mitigate is people's emotional attachment to the old way.

What makes it not exactly the same is that both versions of PowerShell are known to be working. CrowdStrike resulted in an upload of a broken version that left people with no ability to fix it on their end. The Post Office scandal was a broken piece of software that was deemed to be more "accurate" than the people. It may feel like using a different working version will break your existing automated deployments, but that is only temporary and fully within your power to make a plan and prevent downtime. Something not available to the other scenarios. Similar with the Python versions in Linux; despite it being a very different ecosystem, deployments (many supporting cloud infrastructure) were able to cut over their automation at the same time they cut over their Python version. This is because both were known working versions with known differences that can be fully vetted in a test environment before cutting over and achieving zero downtime. That is hardly the same "breaking" that CrowdStrike or Postal Office scandal causes--rather than a surprise break it comes with customer effort.

Now, what will happen after PowerShell 7.4 LTS is shipped with Windows? I expect this site will become a ghost town because the only version of PowerShell Core that matters is the one that Microsoft ships.

Absolutely not the case here. If anything here will get busier with people raising more issues and feature requests.

ps7 and 5 bot support v2 and v3 repos, v2 being powershellget/packagemanagment and v3 being Microsoft.PowerShell.PSResourceGet

We're in a thread a Microsoft employee made to ask about it. Within the context of this thread, past statements Microsoft has made saying they don't think it's worthwhile are entirely irrelevant, as we're all here because Microsoft have indicated they're open to changing their opinion on the matter. People don't like the irrelevant message because it's irrelevant, and if they blame you for anything, it's cluttering the discussion with the irrelevant message.

Precisely. This whole discussion is about evaluating arguments and use cases to decide on the business value of adding PS7 to Windows. Saying it has no business value as a fact is like stating the conclusion without the discussion. It is also misleading because it is phrased in a way that looks like an argument against.

You claim to relay MS's opinion but you only brought that up after being called out. You didn't phrase it as "Microsoft decided that it has no business value, so we can't add it" from the get go. So I don't believe I'm wrongfully blaming the messenger while just being angry at the message; I just feel like you're not seriously trying to contribute to the debate, or if anything you seem to just try to shutdown arguments with irrelevant info.

If what you mean is that this discussion is already over and the conclusion was already communicated somewhere, I'd be happy if you could provide a link so I can get informed.

The disturbing thing here is that it was a business decision to not make PS5 to PS7 a workable transition from an OS perspective. The gaps never closed between PS7 and PS5 compatibility so the removal of PS5 breaks all those historic things. So either they are admitting that PS7 is not the way forward for comprehensive OS management and powershell is dead, or the platform itself (Windows) is on life support. This in between state is tenable for now, but speaks volumes if you dig into this thread and the overall platform.

In the end, it is all code, and you can either write the code so it works, or mark it as incompatible. They chose the latter and here we are with 2 PS's and neither of them are able to comprehensively manage the infrastructure it was originally intended to address. Literally they wrote 2 separate but similar languages for the sole purpose of managing stuff and can't manage stuff. It is bananas.

One would think in a ecosystem a single company largely controls, they would be able to come to terms with a single workable management solution and address all these gaps. But no, it doesn't/didn't make business sense to develop around all those shortcomings. I am guessing that is why MS PS people left that were there originally part of the Snover crew. The vision was ruined.

You see this same pattern repeat in the cloud with Azure Resource Manager and Graph APIs. Instead of building a consistent model for cloud resources, you end up with a mess and neither does the job comprehensively. Then tools based on it, like Powershell work like crap and don't respect their own paradigms. This is why you can't manage intune like entra like exchange like azure, et al.

So in summary you are at the mercy of MS, and they announced they don't care what you think about how the OS is managed, so carry on and do what you may. Just make sure you continue to buy licenses for your company to keep their cow mooing.

This isn't meant to be mean or terse, but it's just business. You aren't getting PS7 to replace PS5, or 8, or 9. Its just not.

Sadly, it's not so simple. A key reason for not including PS7 in Windows is over support life. When win 11 ships a version MS will supportbitbfir a long time. But .NET and PowerShell have a much shorter support life. So far, the lawyers have never been able to reconcile this issue.

Thomas Lee (@doctordns) so your saying MS never updates Windows during it's lifecycle or does an update that could potentially break something. That's certainly news to me lol.

If they stick to the LTS release chain for .NET and PowerShell that should be just fine. Especially since these releases are normally backwards compatible.

We've just hit an issue where a customer is using PowerShell with Compress-Archive and it generates spec-incompatible zip files which breaks our system

why is your issue not fixed with #Requires -Version 7 (either at your end or the customer end) or MS fixing the inbox module Microsoft.PowerShell.Archive ?

shipping 7 by default (or not) does not actually fix your issue, its hides it

even if they did make it the default shipping option, those existing OSs (that are current causing you archive issues) would not automaagically get PS 7 installed unless they were reinstalled so your problem would remain

You're assuming that their product runs on Windows as opposed to receiving files generated by Windows users. I wouldn't make such an assumption.

And clearly they did fix it on their end somehow.

oh quick reply

You're assuming that their product runs on Windows as opposed to receiving files generated by Windows users. I wouldn't make such an assumption.

And clearly they did fix it on their end somehow.

I am I guess, but they said

We've just hit an issue where a customer is using PowerShell with Compress-Archive and it generates spec-incompatible zip files

and

We were all surprised that the fix was merged nearly 7 years ago and is still not part of the default windows powershell installation

So I think its a safe bet

this is the thread about if 7 should be shipped by default or not (in windows) , so I'm voicing the opinion that, none of that would have solved their problem as its not retroactive and its not "powershell" that's the problem here its a specific module

Install-PSResource -Name Microsoft.PowerShell.Archive or Install-Module -Name Microsoft.PowerShell.Archivewould technically install1.2.5` for powershell 5.1

personally i would want both versions until such time 5.1 can be retired

I think I want to know the spec incompatibility specifics before blindly saying ps7 is the fix.

That being said, PS has a very difficult problem supporting a .net framework that refuses to go into ltsc (10 y support cycle).

This alone should not prevent or inhibit adoption of the software, as from a security perspective it still is getting better support and updates than its previous 5.1 version.

I think I want to know the spec incompatibility specifics before blindly saying ps7 is the fix.

Agree

That being said, PS has a very difficult problem supporting a .net framework that refuses to go into ltsc (10 y support cycle).

Agree

This alone should not prevent or inhibit adoption of the software, as from a security perspective it still is getting better support and updates than its previous 5.1 version.

Agree

sometimes I think MS needs to make a line in the sand "No Backwards Compatibility for you!", they've done it for CPU level they've done it for TPM, they can do can do it for powershell

A simple mistake like that is certainly something that could have been avoided and may have already been fixed if deemed necessary.

That linked support lifecycle doc does state

This document is about support for PowerShell. Windows PowerShell (1.0 - 5.1) is a component of the Windows operating system.

so kinda unfair to say this

as if the PowerShell team either doesn't think it's included in Windows 11 or doesn't think Windows 11
exists.

PowerShell 7.0.0 was released Mar 4, 2020. And Windows 11 was released October 5, 2021.

I understand that software freezes at some point (I used to work on major software products), but that's over 18 months between a component release and a platform release.

Taking lessons learnt from previous releases as well as the differences in support lifecyles between Windows, .NET, PowerShell and the components of each does mean that for things to be bundled in Windows they have to meet a higher bar than perhaps they previously did, coupled with a massive amount of changes from Windows PowerShell to PowerShell

If PowerShell 7.x won't be shippable in Windows 11 then could someone please fix https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170 in PowerShell 5

This message should be able to be updated via Update-Help -Force in an admin Windows PowerShell session if this can be fixed, which Sean Wheeler (@sdwheeler) may be able to look into whether that can be fixed or not.

This message should be able to be updated via Update-Help -Force in an admin Windows PowerShell session if this can be fixed, which Sean Wheeler (@sdwheeler) may be able to look into whether that can be fixed or not.

you'd think so, but the amazing amount of inbox modules with broken help urls is large and update-help wont fix those

As has been mentioned a bunch of times earlier in the thread, Windows PowerShell (5.1) uses .NET Framework and PowerShell Core (7) uses .NET Core. If you've got old .NET Framework binaries that you use from PowerShell, they'll never work in a modern version because .NET Core is not backwards compatible with binaries. Some people have binaries to things but not source code that could be recompiled, e.g. because they bought a product from a company and it's gone bust, and they'd like to keep using the things they use.

One of Windows' historical strengths has been how good it's been at preserving backwards compatibility (e.g. there are some fifty year old CP/M binaries that will run just fine on 32-bit builds of Windows 10).

Microsoft has build a lot on top of Windows PowerShell 5.1 making users and organizations quiet depending of it.
But that isn't the same as supporting it.

PowerShell 5.1 is supported in the same way how .NET Framework is supported. The main issue is that Windows Feedback Hub works very worse than Visual Studio Developer Community.

• What about everything learned in PowerShell (core), nothing appears to be worth to be implemented into a Windows PowerShell branch in terms of bug fixes, enhancements and performance😕?

New features is explicitly not considered for maintenance mode. Even bugs are often kept for bug-to-bug compatibility.

• What about security updates?
  Take e.g. the Send-MailMessage cmdlet:

This is inappropriate example. There is no security vulnerability itself, but lack of protection of the underlying communication.

Wouldn't it be time to remove this cmdlet from Windows PowerShell in the next Windows update and ship an alternative (Outlook?) version or at least a version that warns the script author?

Removing is strictly a non-option for a component with in-place compatibility requirement. Reporting a warning by default is the best effort.

It is supported but basically security fixes only. Just recently we had an update to Invoke-We Request that prompted the user if -UseBasicParsing wasn’t specified. Maybe that’s not the support level you are hoping for but it is still support.

Huo Yaoyuan (@huoyaoyuan),

New features is explicitly not considered for maintenance mode. Even bugs are often kept for bug-to-bug compatibility.

Agree, but not every bug-fix requires a break-change. E.g. bugs that result in an incorrect error (like: Trying to Deserialize JSON to typed Object in Powershell) are often resolvable without breaking anything. These type of bugs have been resolved in PowerShell Core versions that have already been out-of-support years ago.

This is inappropriate example. There is no security vulnerability itself, but lack of protection of the underlying communication.

Shouldn't that be a design goal of a decent scripting language?: Protect the author from creating a script that could lead to an vulnerability?
Anyways, the point here is indeed that there is a lack of communication(support). Issues as #16502 never get followed up, irrespective they are valid or not which makes Windows PowerShell (5.1) imho an outdated legacy product in a tech world that is moving at an unprecedented pace.

Shouldn't that be a design goal of a decent scripting language?: Protect the author from creating a script that could lead to an vulnerability?

Consider HTTP/HTTPS or FTP/FTPS as example. There may be components in the wild that only support the non-encrypted variant, because the encrypted one didn't exist when the component was created.

Anyways, the point here is indeed that there is a lack of communication(support).

This is the key point. Microsoft do run the infrastructure to ship a fix to Windows PowerShell 5.1 that's installed in a supported OS. The difficulty here is to report and communicate for issues.

PowerShell 7 supports running sequential commands with &&, but PowerShell 5 does not.

That in itself is not a reason to include PowerShell 7. There are hundreds of differences between the two including breaking changes.

Signed and underlined. I love using Powershell but whenever I need to ship a script to customers, I'm forced to either stick to Windows Powershell 5.1 and work around ExecutionPolicy defaults, or grind my teeth and use Command Prompt batch file instead. In terms of user experience, it's also annoying that .ps1 extension is not in PATHEXT meaning scripts can't be run simply from Windows Explorer.