Getting Started with the PowerShell Gallery

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The PowerShell Gallery is a package repository containing scripts, modules, and DSC resources you can download and leverage. You use the cmdlets in the PowerShellGet module to install packages from the PowerShell Gallery. You do not need to sign in to download items from the PowerShell Gallery.

Note

It is possible to download a package from the PowerShell Gallery directly, but this is not a recommended approach. For more details, see Manual Package Download.

You can find packages in the PowerShell Gallery by using the Search control on the PowerShell Gallery's home page, or by browsing through the Modules and Scripts from the Packages page. You can also find packages from the PowerShell Gallery by running the Find-Module, Find-DscResource, and Find-Script cmdlets, depending on the package type, with -Repository PSGallery.

You can filter results from the Gallery by using the following parameters:

  • Name
  • AllVersions
  • MinimumVersion
  • RequiredVersion
  • Tag
  • Includes
  • DscResource
  • RoleCapability
  • Command
  • Filter

If you're only interested in discovering specific DSC resources in the Gallery, you can run the Find-DscResource cmdlet. Find-DscResource returns data on DSC resources contained in the Gallery. Because DSC resources are always delivered as part of a module, you still need to run Install-Module to install those DSC resources.

Once you've identified a package that you're interested in, you may want to learn more about it. You can do this by examining that package's specific page on the Gallery. On that page, you'll be able to see all of the metadata uploaded with the package. This metadata is provided by the package's author, and is not verified by Microsoft. The Owner of the package is strongly tied to the Gallery account used to publish the package, and is more trustworthy than the Author field.

If you discover a package that you feel is not published in good faith, click Report Abuse on that package's page.

If you're running Find-Module or Find-Script, you can view this data in the returned PSGetModuleInfo object. For example, running Find-Module -Name PSReadLine -Repository PSGallery |Get-Member returns data on the PSReadLine module in the Gallery.

We encourage the following process when downloading packages from the PowerShell Gallery:

Inspect

To download a package from the Gallery for inspection, run either the Save-Module or Save-Script cmdlet, depending on the package type. This lets you save the package locally without installing it, and inspect the package contents. Remember to delete the saved package manually.

Some of these packages are authored by Microsoft, and others are authored by the PowerShell community. Microsoft recommends that you review the contents and code of packages on this gallery prior to installation.

If you discover a package that you feel is not published in good faith, click Report Abuse on that package's page.

Install

To install a package from the Gallery for use, run either the Install-Module or Install-Script cmdlet, depending on the package type.

Install-Module installs the module to $env:ProgramFiles\WindowsPowerShell\Modules by default. This requires an administrator account. If you add the -Scope CurrentUser parameter, the module is installed to $env:USERPROFILE\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules .

Install-Script installs the script to $env:ProgramFiles\WindowsPowerShell\Scripts by default. This requires an administrator account. If you add the -Scope CurrentUser parameter, the script is installed to $env:USERPROFILE\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Scripts .

By default, Install-Module and Install-Script installs the most current version of a package. To install an older version of the package, add the -RequiredVersion parameter.

Deploy

To deploy a package from the PowerShell Gallery to Azure Automation, click Azure Automation, then click Deploy to Azure Automation on the package details page. You are redirected to the Azure Management Portal where you sign in by using your Azure account credentials. Note that deploying packages with dependencies deploys all the dependencies to Azure Automation. The 'Deploy to Azure Automation' button can be disabled by adding the AzureAutomationNotSupported tag to your package metadata.

To learn more about Azure Automation, see the Azure Automation documentation.

To update packages installed from the PowerShell Gallery, run either the [Update-Module][] or [Update-Script][] cmdlet. When run without any additional parameters, [Update-Module][] attempts to update all modules installed by running Install-Module. To selectively update modules, add the -Name parameter.

Similarly, when run without any additional parameters, [Update-Script][] also attempts to update all scripts installed by running Install-Script. To selectively update scripts, add the -Name parameter.

To find out which modules you have installed from the PowerShell Gallery, run the Get-InstalledModule cmdlet. This command lists all of the modules you have on your system that were installed directly from the PowerShell Gallery.

Similarly, to find out which scripts you have installed from the PowerShell Gallery, run the Get-InstalledScript cmdlet. This command lists all the scripts you have on your system that were installed directly from the PowerShell Gallery.