To add custom PowerShell modules to your PowerShell environment, you first need to find out where you PowerShell profile is. You can do this by typing in:
$profile
into a PowerShell prompt. It should look like the following:
Now we need to test if the path actually exists. To do this type:
Test-Path $profile
If the prompt returns $true, your good. If it returns $false then you will need to run the following command:
New-Item -Path $profile -Itemtype file -Force
Now that is done we should be able to open the file in notepad. You can either browse to it following the path in $profile or type in:
notepad $profile
This should open a blank text file:
In here is where you specify PowerShell to look for custom modules and can even add text to the PowerShell prompt. For example, if I had the following to the notepad, it will also be displayed when I open a new PowerShell window:
But we can also use this to load custom functions into our PowerShell environment. To do this, got to the $profile location, here you should find a folder called “Scripts”
Go into the folder and create a new folder, mine is called “autoload”
Here is where you create your custom functions/ scripts. For example, here is what I have:
where each file contains a single function.
Now that were done with the easy part. You want to go back into your $profile notepad and add the following in order for PowerShell to load your customer functions:
$psdir="C:\users\YOU!\documents\windowspowershell\scripts\YOURSCRIPTFILENAME"
get-childitem "${psdir}\*.ps1" | %{.$_}
You can see from my file. I have multiple files to make for easier sorting of my functions. I also have a custom start screen to list all of my current commands so that I don’t forget them. You can see that below:
Just so that you can see, this is what my PowerShell prompts look like:
For a list on verbs and commands that you can use, visit the Microsoft website and forums. You DON’T want to use verbs or commands that are used else where or that have a unique purpose. Choose verbs that are different. Good luck. Enjoy!
