Determine installed PowerShell version

The below cmdlet will return the PowerShell version.

$PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major

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][1]*.

[1]:

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I would use either **[Get-Host](

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)** 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

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 > $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

You can verify that Windows PowerShell version installed by completing the following check:

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click Windows PowerShell, and then click Windows PowerShell.
2. 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

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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"
}

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][1] 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.

[![Image][2]][2]

[1]:

[To see links please register here]

[2]:

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**

<!-- language-all: lang-none -->

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
)

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 — which is entirely correct, but not what you're looking for.

PS C:\> $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

Major Minor Build Revision
----- ----- ----- --------
4 0 -1 -1

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`.