PowerShell script to return versions of .NET Framework on a machine?

What would a PowerShell script be to return versions of the .NET Framework on a machine?

My first guess is something involving WMI. Is there something better?

It should be a one-liner to return only the latest version for each installation of .NET [on each line].

[environment]::Version

Gives you an instance of [`Version`][1] for the CLR the current copy of PSH is using (as documented [here][2]).


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Not pretty. *Definitely* not pretty:

ls $Env:windir\Microsoft.NET\Framework | ? { $_.PSIsContainer } | select -exp Name -l 1

This may or may not work. But as far as the latest version is concerned this should be pretty reliable, as there are essentially empty folders for old versions (1.0, 1.1) but not newer ones – those only appear once the appropriate framework is installed.

Still, I suspect there must be a better way.

I'm not up on my PowerShell syntax, but I think you could just call [System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeEnvironment.GetSystemVersion()][1]. This will return the version as a string (something like `v2.0.50727`, I think).


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Correct syntax:

[System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeEnvironment]::GetSystemVersion()
#or
$PSVersionTable.CLRVersion

The [`GetSystemVersion`](

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) function returns a string like this:

v2.0.50727 #PowerShell v2.0 in Win 7 SP1

or like this

v4.0.30319 #PowerShell v3.0 (Windows Management Framework 3.0) in Win 7 SP1

[`$PSVersionTable`](

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) is a read-only object. The CLRVersion property is a structured version number like this:

Major Minor Build Revision
----- ----- ----- --------
4 0 30319 18444

Here's the general idea:

Get child items in the .NET Framework directory that are containers whose names match
the pattern *v number dot number*. Sort them by descending name, take the first object,
and return its name property.

Here's the script:

(Get-ChildItem -Path $Env:windir\Microsoft.NET\Framework | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $true } | Where-Object {$_.Name -match 'v\d\.\d'} | Sort-Object -Property Name -Descending | Select-Object -First 1).Name

gci 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP' |
sort pschildname -des |
select -fi 1 -exp pschildname

This answer doesn't return 4.5 if that is installed. The answer below from @Jaykul and using recurse does.

There's no reliable way to do this for all platforms and architectures using a simple script. If you want to learn how to do it reliably, start at the blog post *[Updated sample .NET Framework detection code that does more in-depth checking][1]*.

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Refer to the page [*Script for finding which .NET versions are installed on remote workstations*][1].

The script there might be useful to find the .NET version for multiple machines on a network.

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I found this through tab completion in powershell for osx:


`[System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::get_FrameworkDescription()
.NET Core 4.6.25009.03`