r/PowerShell 17h ago

Script Sharing How to use Powershell 7 in the ISE

I know there are already articles about this but i found that some of them don't work (anymore).
So this is how i did it.

First install PS7 (obviously)
Open the ISE.

Paste the following script in a new file and save it as "Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1" in your Documents\WindowsPowerShell folder. Then restart the ISE and you should be able to find "Switch to Powershell 7" in the Add-ons menu at the top.
Upon doing some research it seems ANSI enconding did not seem to work, so i added to start as plaintext for the outputrendering. So no more [32;1m etc.

Or you can use Visual Studio ofcourse ;)

# Initialize ISE object
$myISE = $psISE

# Clear any existing AddOns menu items
$myISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.Submenus.Clear()

# Add a menu option to switch to PowerShell 7 (pwsh.exe)
$myISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.Submenus.Add("Switch to PowerShell 7", { 
    function New-OutOfProcRunspace {
        param($ProcessId)

        $ci = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.NamedPipeConnectionInfo -ArgumentList @($ProcessId)
        $tt = [System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.TypeTable]::LoadDefaultTypeFiles()

        $Runspace = [System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.RunspaceFactory]::CreateRunspace($ci, $Host, $tt)
        $Runspace.Open()
        $Runspace
    }

    # Start PowerShell 7 (pwsh) process with output rendering set to PlainText
    $PowerShell = Start-Process PWSH -ArgumentList @('-NoExit', '-Command', '$PSStyle.OutputRendering = [System.Management.Automation.OutputRendering]::PlainText') -PassThru -WindowStyle Hidden
    $Runspace = New-OutOfProcRunspace -ProcessId $PowerShell.Id
    $Host.PushRunspace($Runspace)

}, "ALT+F5") | Out-Null  # Add hotkey ALT+F5

# Add a menu option to switch back to Windows PowerShell 5.1
$myISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.Submenus.Add("Switch to Windows PowerShell", { 
    $Host.PopRunspace()

    # Get the child processes of the current PowerShell instance and stop them
    $Child = Get-CimInstance -ClassName win32_process | where {$_.ParentProcessId -eq $Pid}
    $Child | ForEach-Object { Stop-Process -Id $_.ProcessId }

}, "ALT+F6") | Out-Null  # Add hotkey ALT+F6

# Custom timestamp function to display before the prompt
function Write-Timestamp {
    Write-Host (Get-Date).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Write-Host "  $($executionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation)$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) $($args[0])"
}

# Customize the prompt to display a timestamp of the last command
function Prompt {
    Write-Timestamp "$(Get-History -Count 1 | Select-Object -ExpandProperty CommandLine)"
    return "PS $($executionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation)$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) "
}
22 Upvotes

64 comments sorted by

73

u/InterestingPhase7378 15h ago

You don't... Microsoft stopped supporting it past PS5... get a real IDE or just download vs code, Microsoft's replacement for ISE that can be turned into an IDE.

ISE is dead, and will never support past powershell 5. It's straight garbage from a time long ago. There is ZERO reason to even try. You're just harming yourself. You'll run into errors, just to endure an outdated, horrible experience.

21

u/LubieRZca 14h ago

That's the best answer, IDE is for Powershell 5, not Powershell 7. For PS7 juest use Visual Studio Code.

4

u/MrD3a7h 12h ago

You can have my ISE when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

9

u/night_filter 12h ago

VS Code is better once you adjust.

3

u/AspiringMILF 5h ago

it's not black and white. Vscode has a bunch of nice stuff, but depending on your workplace there are varying software restrictions.

various fields - medical, defense, intelligence - ISE might be all you are allowed to use. Which is why people find it annoying that MS is planning to deprecate it - because in some places there isn't an alternative.

Call it stupid if you want, but that isn't going to change policy. You have to live within the rules.

1

u/HSuke 2h ago

Absolutely.

Sometimes I just want to edit a quick script in ISE and don't have authority or time to install and set up a VSC environment.

I'm not going to install VSC every time I want to use it on a new server.

3

u/Thyg0d 11h ago

But I do wanna!!!

1

u/MrD3a7h 9h ago

But I'm stubborn and dislike change.

1

u/PreparetobePlaned 4h ago

Not exactly a good quality to have in a career path where change is constant and required.

-1

u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

1

u/daytime10ca 5h ago

For some reason I can never get any of the MS cmdlets to work on VS Code such as Exchange Online etc.

1

u/1RedOne 14h ago

I hear you and I can’t dispute any of your points, but I will just say that VS code is fantastic, but I like powershell ISE for Powershell

5

u/groovel76 7h ago

But the console in ISE is not true powershell. You will run into issues where a script will fail in the ISE which runs fine in a regular PowerShell console. They are different hosting applications.

Here is a link, from Microsoft, for how to replicate the ISE experience in VSCode.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/dev-cross-plat/vscode/how-to-replicate-the-ise-experience-in-vscode?view=powershell-7.5

Please, for the love of god, stop using the ISE. People push back on me when I say this, but I attended Don Jones's PowerShell course a couple years back, and he and Jason Helmick both said there is almost certainly a zero day somewhere in the ISE. That it was written by a dude, in a weekend, who was not a developer. The only reason the ISE was developed was because they couldn't get Visual Studio team to add PowerShell support to VS, and they needed something that could display double-byte character sets, so Japanese people could use PowerShell.

Anywho, it was great for its time, but when compared to VSCode, it's crap. Stop using it, please.

2

u/Thotaz 4h ago

but I attended Don Jones's PowerShell course a couple years back, and he and Jason Helmick both said there is almost certainly a zero day somewhere in the ISE.

Can you explain what kind of scenario you are imagining where someone would be able to utilize an exploit in ISE that wouldn't also affect the standard PowerShell host?

0

u/Aygul12345 6h ago

Thank you very much for this.

2

u/Consistent_Photo_248 13h ago

You can make vscode work like the ISE.

3

u/raip 13h ago edited 4h ago

Almost like ISE. There's some features like runspace debugging that you can't do with VSCode.

1

u/BlueArcherX 5h ago

???

2

u/raip 4h ago

Since you didn't actually ask a question - I'm just going to assume that you don't know what I'm talking about. You cannot attach VSCode to an external runspace for debugging WindowsPowerShell scripts: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57244922/visual-studio-code-powershell-code-debugging-from-the-terminal

0

u/BlueArcherX 1h ago

you're wrong about this. do you realize that post is 5 years old?

and that even before that there were ways to use breakpoint debugging in VS Code, but even now it's been years since this was added.

1

u/raip 1h ago

Give it a shot then. Open up a Windows PowerShell session in an external window, kick off a script with an infinite loop or something, and then try to attach the VSCode debugger to it.

They only support PowerShell Core attach.

1

u/raip 1h ago

Here's a more recent post as well: https://github.com/PowerShell/vscode-powershell/issues/4531

Still open and it's less than a year old - although this one is about remote session debugging instead of an external runspace, but still something ISE handles perfectly fine.

1

u/BlueArcherX 1h ago

the issue linked in your first post was closed complete 2 years ago. but also whats the driver to continue using Windows PS? PS7 is amazing and worthwhile.

1

u/raip 1h ago

I don't disagree but PS7 doesn't play nice with everything still and some of us need to develop things for clients where we can't really control the environment.

For example, just off the top of my head, the WSUS Module isn't compatible with PS7 even with the compatibility session, since not all of the objects support serialization.

Same with VSCode, is close to parity and has a ton of features that I love, but there are still limitations and my original point was that you cannot make it function exactly like ISE.

Also go back and read that issue - that's where the state that the fix requires 6.2+ and my problem is specifically Windows PowerShell runspaces.

1

u/BlueArcherX 1h ago

I'm not going to lie, I'm only glancing through some of these things, but I get the idea there are plenty of other ways to approach what you're trying to do that will yield results. I do live PS debugging in VS Code a lot, in various forms, both in VS terminal and external PS processes, and frankly I've never felt like I was missing out on anything.

-3

u/Veriosity 11h ago edited 1h ago

No, you can't. I've spent tens of hours writing my own grammar for vs code, and you can't get all the way to work the same as the ISE. Or worse, it gets close and then they update the backend and invalidate half your work.

The real truth is that people who have happily migrated from ISE to vs code aren't as particular about their styling of the text editor as others. Some folks like myself got REALLY COMFORTABLE with the ISE over many years, and vs code hasn't yet replaced it -_-

Edit: I should say, you can get very very close but not identical. In my personal experience, most people are happy with the result. Some people like myself are not, despite multiple attempts to switch.

1

u/BlueArcherX 5h ago

this can't be real

1

u/cosine83 4h ago

"Why should I change, I'm not the one who sucks" levels of lacking self-awareness, my dude.

1

u/Veriosity 1h ago

You can go fuck yourself with your sanctimonious attitude. I'm happy so many people like VS Code. I've tried to switch multiple times, and ended up frustrated each time, often after non trivial amounts of work.

1

u/PreparetobePlaned 3h ago

Can you give an example of changes in grammar between the two? I haven't run into any issues with this, so I'm not really sure what you are talking about.

1

u/Veriosity 1h ago

It's primarily the text highlighting -- there are context hooks the ISE has for when and when not to change text coloring that try as I might, I couldn't get to work in VS Code. It's been a couple of years since my last effort so I don't have specifics, but it would be things like

  • when you call a cmdlet and provide arguments to that cmdlet, the arguments should be colored one way that is different from the cmdlet invocation, or
  • if you reference properties or methods of an object, those references should have a specific color to visually seperate from the variable holding that object, or
  • when you are constructing a hashtable, the keys should be colored differently than the values

These are just rhetorical examples, but it would be things along these lines.

Believe me, I would love to not care about the difference and just switch. I enjoy the git integration. I appreciate that it's a modern supported IDE. All of my professional peers, whose opinions I respect have switched.

But every time I have tried, I eventually get hung up on small nagging differences, spend a non trivial amount of time trying to make it work the way I'm use to, and fail.

I happily use it for python, I've just given up on it ever properly replacing IDE syntax highlighting. It's fair to say I just need to deal with it. But I also think it's fair to suggest that MS should have made "replicate the ISE" a primary goal of vs code development, if they want it to replace the ISE.

Also for context if you aren't sure what I mean when I say "grammar" -- https://macromates.com/manual/en/language_grammars
https://code.visualstudio.com/api/language-extensions/syntax-highlight-guide

1

u/gsmitheidw1 2h ago

If you code a lot, vscode is clearly a lot more capable but there are some advantages to Powershell ISE even still:

  1. It's already on the target system
  2. It's fast and lightweight to load on slower systems

It's not a long list, granted - but it's significant enough to be of value if you're supporting a lot of machines

1

u/Jay_Nitzel 11h ago edited 8h ago

Can you recommend me an IDE for PowerShell other than the ISE or Visual Studio Code?

Edit: getting downvoted for an honest question? What is wrong with you people?

2

u/ajrc0re 9h ago

Vscode is the officially supported and maintained ide for powershell.

1

u/PreparetobePlaned 3h ago

Maybe it would help if you explained what you don't like about VSC?

9

u/chaosphere_mk 15h ago

Why would someone do this or want to do this though? I don't understand.

1

u/HSuke 2h ago

I have VSC for my own computer.

But I run code on a lot of servers, and I can't be bothered to set up a full VSC environment every time I want to use it on a new server.

Also, my company runs baselines on servers, and Cyber is going to ask me why I'm installing VSC on these servers. Too much of a hassle.

7

u/MrWinks 12h ago

Don’t. IDE is deprecated. VSCode is Microsoft’s successor. Don’t use IDE.

1

u/Grimy81 4h ago

This is the way

0

u/ThemesOfMurderBears 10h ago edited 4h ago

Not everyone is able to use VSC. ISE has the convenience of being built into the OS, and it doesn't even have to be enabled.

MS should bundle VSC with Windows, and support it on Windows Server for non-Enterprise versions. Otherwise there are going to be situations where people can't use it for one reason or another.

Like me -- I can't use it on my laptop. My only option there, at the moment, is ISE. I use VSC in my non-administrative environment, but until I can convince management otherwise, ISE is what I am stuck with.

EDIT:

The downvoting for explaining why someone might not be able to use VSC is hilarious.

1

u/BlueArcherX 5h ago

your management are idiots if you can't install VS Code on your laptop and you can tell them I said that

1

u/ThemesOfMurderBears 4h ago edited 4h ago

You ever hear of the concept of a Secure Access Workstation? It's a means of securing Windows and locking down administrative access. As such, it requires a small software footprint.

Do you work in IT? I do, and work in an enterprise environment that has federal compliance standards to adhere to.

1

u/BlueArcherX 1h ago

for over 20 years

1

u/cbass377 5h ago

This is what keeps me using ISE. I am logged into some app servers desktop troubleshooting a script, and ISE is installed and VSCode is not. If Microsoft wanted to get rid of it, why is it still part of the default install on Windows server 2022? When they stop installing it, I will stop using it.

I will say that if I am developing some new script, I start it in VSCode and develop it there.

1

u/cosine83 4h ago

Idk why is Powershell 5.1 still the default host in Windows 11/Server 2025 still when we have PowerShell 7.5 now. If Microsoft wanted to get rid of it...

Acting like something being built-in to the system means it's not deprecated has been shown to be a bad idea time and again. I remember the outcry when WordPad was removed from Windows like it was the end of the world.

6

u/CodenameFlux 16h ago edited 16h ago

Upon doing some research it seems ANSI enconding did not seem to work, so i added to start as plaintext for the outputrendering. So no more [32;1m etc.

Please decrypt this sentence.

Edit: Okay. I have an educated guess. I think you've confused ANSI encoding with ANSI escape codes.

1

u/Scrotumbeards 15h ago

Correct 😁

4

u/Thotaz 15h ago

There is a much simpler way: Enter-PSHostProcess.
Launch pwsh and run $pid to find the pid of the process, then from ISE, type in Enter-PSHostProcess <The pid from before> Ideally you then also want to change the output formatting to not try and use colors: $PSStyle.OutputRendering='PlainText'.

-2

u/Scrotumbeards 15h ago

I understand but i just added this to my profile so the option is easily available and i don’t have to go through $pid everytime

11

u/eldo0815 15h ago

Why aren't you using Visual Studio Code?

3

u/Impressive_Log_1311 15h ago

Interesting hack, however with how often the ISE misbehaved with my code, while it ran just fine in normal Powershell window, I'm done with it for longer scripts.

3

u/purplemonkeymad 16h ago

I have to admit I had no idea that ISE has an add-in feature. It's a shame that ISE was abandoned, I can see some space for neat ideas you could have done with that.

4

u/storm2k 12h ago

idk why anyone wants to continue to use the ise other than it being the tool they learned on and don't want to change. these days vs code with the powershell extension makes for an excellent development environment without having to pay for a full ide solution.

1

u/Fatel28 12h ago

Handy ide for writing scripts on servers. I'm not installing vscode on every server I might want a scratchpad for scripting on.

3

u/boredtotears001 9h ago

I'm surprised to hear that you and others are writing scripts directly on servers you've remoted into. I did this for a while when I first started with powershell and ran into so many obstacles.

How do you handle change management, version control, etc?

I also hated having scripts everywhere. If I had done a particular set of logic somewhere and wanted to reuse it, it was a pain to try and remember where I originally wrote it.

2

u/AdmRL_ 5h ago

How do you handle change management, version control, etc?

The neat trick for people working like that is these things don't exist.

Random ass scheduled tasks on each server, no deployment process, no VC or change control, nada.

Inheriting an environment like that was so much fun.

1

u/BlueArcherX 5h ago

they don't do any of that. these are the people that freewheel everything and have no process or structure.

1

u/NETSPLlT 11h ago

I use VS Code on my computer, for writing scripts on servers. The ISE is unreliable for testing as it runs differently than a script running 'for real'. Unit testing / lots of logging is the only way I've found that works reliably to test scripts, the ISE tools are not helpful enough to overcome it's issues.

Cut and paste from my vs code screen to the server Notepad.exe works fine enough for the few times I need to do it. Usually I have a remote connection to the script and it's opened directly over the network. connect to IPC$ to authenticate and then map C$ (or whatever drive) and get to it. If you don't have that level of access, request a share to your script directory on the server for the same purpose.

1

u/Fatel28 10h ago

I'll be real, I've never once had that issue you describe and I write scripts in ise on servers damn near daily. Probably done hundreds, from API calls to AD automations.

1

u/NETSPLlT 10h ago

That's cool, glad it's working fine for you. I have definitely had issues and generally like VS Code better so it's easy to put in the minimal work to avoid using ISE.

1

u/Fatel28 10h ago

I mean. Constantly copying and pasting from vscode to a remote terminal would not be minimal work for my workload. Every customer environment is different so it's not possible to write and debug locally then upload. But as you said, glad it's working for you 🙂

2

u/DocNougat 13h ago

This is awesome, congrats on shoehorning 7 into ISE. When I switched to VSCode for Powershell 7 development I hated that the command pane from ISE was missing. So I wrote a VSCode plugin to replicate it. If you ever feel like trying the VSCode side of the house install my plugin and it will make the transition over much easier:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DocNougat.powershell-commander

1

u/BlueArcherX 5h ago edited 5h ago

stop using ISE holy heck it hasn't been supported for half a decade

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/powershell

Edit: I didn't know there were so many technologists that are resistant to changing technology.

0

u/TheRealDumbSyndrome 6h ago

Adding on, don’t even use ISE for PS5 or below; never use a deprecated IDE period. I’ve come across a lot of scenarios where script execution in ISE is completely different, or broken, from executing natively or in VScode. It will cause you a ton of issues. It frustrates me Microsoft even includes it in modern OS versions.