How to know if powershell is installed on remote workstation?

Question

How to know if powershell is installed on remote workstation; we need to do the inventory of all the powershell enabled workstations so that we can plan a change for deploying; is there a way to remotely know if powershell is installed and what version?

Maharani

what OS are you running on the clients? xp? vista? Windows7 has powershell 2.0 installed by default. – Ane

Got interested in having a function like this myself, so I updated my answer with a new powershell-version if you need it. :-) – Ane

Answer 1

check if file exist ?

$path= "\\remote\C$\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe"
if(test-path $path){(ls $path).VersionInfo}

Raeraeann

If i am checking for wither powershell 2.0 or 3.0 , the path should be $path= "\\remote\C$\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v2.0\powershell.exe" or $path= "\\remote\C$\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v3.0\powershell.exe" ? – Maharani

no. microsoft forgot to change the number, so all versions reside in the v1.0 folder – Ane

This is my output Product Version is 6.2.8370.0 and FileVersion is 6.2.8370.0 (winmain_win8rc.120428-1335) how to determine if its version 2.0 or 3.0 or even 1.0? – Maharani

6.0* is PS1.0, 6.1* is PS2.0 and 6.2* is PS3 – Ane

@Graimer - on Server 2008 with PS v2, I'm seeing exe ProductVersion 6.0.6002.18111 – Keek

Hmm, weird. On c:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe? I must admit I didn't test it on vista/2008, only 7, 2008r2(ps2.0 is default) and 8/2012. – Ane

Answer 2

You could use a batch-script that you run manually or try using GPO(as a startup script). It will save a file my-computer-name.txt with "false" if powershell wasn't found or the PS-version(1.0 or 2.0) if PS is installed. Then you'd just read the files.

pscheck.bat

@echo off
FOR /F "tokens=3" %%A IN ('REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1" /v Install ^| FIND "Install"') DO SET PowerShellInstalled=%%A

IF NOT "%PowerShellInstalled%"=="0x1" (
echo false > \\remote\location\%COMPUTERNAME%.txt

GOTO end
)

FOR /F "tokens=3" %%A IN ('REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellEngine" /v PowerShellVersion ^| FIND "PowerShellVersion"') DO SET PowerShellVersion=%%A

echo %PowerShellVersion% > \\remote\location\%COMPUTERNAME%.txt

:end

The PSversion value for 3.0 in the registry is in another key(...\PowerShell\3\PowerShellEngine), but I'm gussing PS3.0 is not necessary to know since it's so new and all PS scripts work with PS 2.0.

Update: Powershell version

function Check-PS {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
        [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true)]
        [String[]]$ComputerName = $env:COMPUTERNAME
    )

    Process
    {
        foreach ($computer in $ComputerName) 
        {

            $path = "\\$computer\C$\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe"
            $exists = $false

            #Check if exists
            if(Test-Path $path){
                $exists = $true
                #Detect version
                switch -Wildcard ((Get-ChildItem $path).VersionInfo.ProductVersion)
                {
                    "6.0*" { $ver = 1 }
                    "6.1*" { $ver = 2 }
                    "6.2*" { $ver = 3 }
                    default { $ver = 0 }
                }

            } else {
                Write-Error "Failed to connect to $computer"
                $ver = -1
            }

            #Return object
            New-Object pscustomobject -Property @{
                Computer = $computer
                HasPowerShell = $exists
                Version = $ver
            }
        }
    }
}

It supports mulitple computernames and input via pipeline.

Check-PS -ComputerName "Computer1", "Computer2"

Or

"Computer1", "Computer2" | Check-PS

Test with localcomputer(default computername):

PS > Check-PS

HasPowerShell Computer Version
------------- -------- -------
         True FRODE-PC       3

Ane

Thanks for the script, one of our domains is using exclusively XP workstations dated back to 2004 , so need to know powershell enabled ones. – Maharani