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Powershell broke - basic commands not working, not loading modules from common folders

Mikhail Ladanov 1 Reputation point
2021-01-05T04:12:12.313+00:00

At some point my Powershell broke. Standard commands like 'Write-Host' stopped working.
I was using VS Code on Windows 10 and using PowerShell 5.1
Checked all the environmental variables, everything looks fine.
Couldn't fix it and got a new machine.
Did literally the following:

  • Installed VS Code
  • Turned on Powershell extension in VS Code
  • It prompted something about Package Manager needing an update or it will not work properly
  • Asked me to install NuGet to get the Package Manager
  • After that PowerShell 5.1 stopped working again.
  • Somewhere in between installed Git

After that PowerShell stopped working.
Exactly the same symptoms: Modules not autoloading, fresh instance of powershell does this: 

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Write-Host
Write-Host : The term 'Write-Host' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify 
that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ Write-Host
+ ~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (Write-Host:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Did some more troubleshooting. Created a local user and repeated all the steps:

  • Created a local user
  • Installed VS Code
  • Installed Powershell Extension within VS Code
  • It asked to update PackageManagement
  • Said it needed NuGet to update PackageManagement, installed
  • Installed Git

Everything is working.
Some more troubleshooting showed that my main user does not look into folders C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules when looking for a cmdlet. It only looks into C:\Users\myMainUser\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules. So I either have to do Import-Module -Name Microsoft.PowerShell.Management and so on, or copy all the modules into C:\Users\myMainUser\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules.
My temporary user apparently functions normally.
Any ideas?

Windows Server PowerShell
Windows Server PowerShell
Windows Server: A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.PowerShell: A family of Microsoft task automation and configuration management frameworks consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language.
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  1. Ian Xue (Shanghai Wicresoft Co., Ltd.) 31,731 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2021-01-05T06:52:34.927+00:00

    Hi,

    Check if $env:PSModulePath contains C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules. If not, add them to the system variable "PSModulePath" in Environment Variables in System Properties window.

    Best Regards，
    Ian Xue

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