PowerShell 7.2: a few cool new things to check out

As one of the automation nerds for N‑able and the head nerd for N‑central, I grow more and more fond of PowerShell (pwsh) the more I use it. So I was excited when Microsoft announced the release of PowerShell 7.2 last month. MSPs and IT administrators have long been wanting Microsoft to update PowerShell, and that day is finally here (if you choose to accept it.)

PowerShell 7.2 is the next long-term servicing (LTS) release built on .NET 6.0, and Microsoft has included a bunch of new features and functionality. So, I thought I’d list a few of the cool new things now included in PowerShell. And the best part … Microsoft will support this version until the end of 2024.

Here are my top three things about the new 7.2 release of PowerShell:

1. More installation options

First, to install PowerShell 7.2 you can download the package here: Https://github.com/powershell/powershell (scroll about halfway down and you’ll see the install types based on OS)

You’ll find the PowerShell 7.2 MSI package includes following handy new command-line options:

USE_MU

This property has two possible values:

• 1 (default): Allows you to opt in to updating through Microsoft Update or WSUS
• 0: Allows you to opt out of updating through Microsoft Update or WSUS

ENABLE_MU

This property also has two possible values:

• 1 (default): Allows you to opt in to using Microsoft Update, the automatic updates, or Windows Update
• 0: Allows you to opt out of using Microsoft Update, the automatic updates, or Windows Update

The following commands can be used to install PowerShell using the published winget packages:

> winget search Microsoft.PowerShell

Install PowerShell or PowerShell Preview using the id parameter

> winget install – -id Microsoft.PowerShell – -source winget 

msiexec.exe /package PowerShell-7.2.0-win-x64.msi /quiet ADD_EXPLORER_CONTEXT_MENU_OPENPOWERSHELL=1 ENABLE_PSREMOTING=1 REGISTER_MANIFEST=1

2. PowerShell is open source and cross-platform

I know it has been out for a while now, but I still think it’s amazing that I can run PowerShell on nearly any operating system, including Apple M1, ARM, and x64. You can also run PowerShell on the following operating systems: Windows (x64), Windows (x86), Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Debian 9, Debian 10, Debian 11, CentOS 7, CentOS 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, openSUSE 42.3, Fedora 30, macOS 10.13+ (x64), and macOS 10.13+ (arm64).

It’s impressive that Microsoft allows community members to contribute to its codebase.

Talk about getting the warm and fuzzies.

3. PowerShell is now more productive

The enhanced Predictive IntelliSense that ships with pwsh 7.2 is a feature in PSReadLine 2.1. As  Microsoft Devblogs explains, that feature is meant to “make the interactive console more productive, particularly with repetitive tasks, we’ve added a feature to use your history to predict what you may be typing. This feature must be enabled and you can also customize the colors used for the predictive text. Here, I’ve changed the default color to something more visible. You would use the right arrow key to accept the prediction or keep typing, which can affect the prediction.”

These are just my highlights, if you want the full outline of what has shipped with PowerShell 7.2, check out the what’s new documentation from Microsoft.

You can also download the Automation Manager Policy (AMP) from our Automation Cookbook, which will push PowerShell 7.2 to your customer endpoints.

Jason Murphy is the N‑central automation nerd at N‑able. You can follow him on reddit on r/nable or Twitter at @ncentral_nerd.