Windows PowerShell Version Check

Check Your Version of PowerShell
with $PSVersionTable

PowerShell has a built-in variable called $PSVersionTable, it displays numeric information about the Version, Build and Compatibility.

• $PSVersionTable
• Detailed PowerShell Version Check
• $Host – PowerShell Variable
• Running PowerShell 4.0 as Version 2.0

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$PSVersionTable

This variable was first introduced in PowerShell version 2.0.

Name 			Value 
---- 			----- 
PSVersion     		 4.0 
WSManStackVersion	 3.0 
SerializationVersion	 1.1.0.1 
CLRVersion		 4.0.30319.18408BuildVersion		 6.3.9600.16406 
PSCompatibleVersions	 {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0} 
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.2 

Note 1: PSVersion is 4.0

Note 2: CLRVersion means Common runtime version.

Note 3: BuildVersion varies depending on the underlying operating system.

Detailed PowerShell Version Check

Here is a more detailed version check on the PowerShell executable.

Major 	Minor 	Build 	Revision   4 	  0 	  -1  	  -1 

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$Host – PowerShell Variable

Here is an alternative method to check your version of Windows PowerShell.

Name: 			Windows PowerShell ISE Host
Version: 			4.0	  InstanceId: 		d36fdafd-f9e9-4642-bc85-6dea29105f61 
UI: 				System.Management.Automation.				Internal.Host.InternalHostUserInterface
CurrentCulture: 		en-GB
CurrentUICulture:	en-US
PrivateData:  		Microsoft.PowerShell.Host.ISE.ISEOptions
IsRunspacePushed: 	FalseRunspace: 		System.Management.Automation.				Runspaces.LocalRunspace 

Note 4: As with PSVersionTable, the PowerShell Version is 4.0

Checking Your .Net Version

Here is a script which interrogates the NET Framework section of the registry.

PSChildName                      Version       -----------                      -------       v2.0.50727                       2.0.50727.5420v3.0                             3.0.30729.5420Windows Communication Foundation 3.0.4506.5420 Windows Presentation Foundation  3.0.6920.5011 v3.5                             3.5.30729.5420Client                           4.5.50938     Full                             4.5.50938     Client                           4.0.0.0     

Note 5: Observe the use of -Recurse to drill down to the sub keys. 

Note 6: Check the REGEX pattern matching: '^(?!S)\p{L}'

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Running PowerShell 4.0 as Version 2.0

My main reason for downgrading the version from 4 to 2 is for testing.  What I do is create a shortcut, and append -Version 2 to 
Target: ..\powershell.exe -version 2. 

Incidentally, Windows PowerShell is always installed in a sub-folder called v1.0.

Note 7: The syntax requires a space either side of -version.

Note 8: If you try -version 1 you still get PowerShell version 2!

Note 9: PowerShell v4 installs in a sub-directory called \v1.0\ (see above).

Name 			Value 
CLRVersion 		2.0.50727 
BuildVersion 		6.1.7601
PSVersion 			2.0 
WSManStackVersion 	2.0 
PSCompatibleVersions  {1.0, 2.0} 
SerializationVersion 	1.1.0.1PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.1

Other Useful PowerShell Testing Techniques

Note 10:  When experimenting, you could substitute more useful code for "Supports Version 4"

See more PowerShell built-in variables »

Summary of PowerShell’s $PSVersionTable

Check your version of PowerShell with $PSVersionTable or $Host.  You can also append a -version 2 switch to run PowerShell 3 as a previous version.

See more Windows PowerShell tutorials

• PShell Home   • Introduction   • Dreams   • 3 Key Commands   • PowerShell Help About   • Get-Help

• PowerShell v 3.0   • Set-ExecutionPolicy   • Get-Command   • Cmdlet scripts   • Import-Module

• PowerShell Version Check   • Backtick   • PowerShell examples   • PowerShell ISE   • Get-Member

Please email me if you have a better example script. Also please report any factual mistakes, grammatical errors or broken links, I will be happy to correct the fault.