Install SQL Server PowerShell module

  • 2 minutes to read
  • Contributors
    • Steve Stein
    • Craig Guyer
    • Matteo Taveggia
    • Gene Milener
APPLIES TO: yesSQL Server yesAzure SQL Database yesAzure SQL Data Warehouse yesParallel Data Warehouse

This article provides directions for installing the SqlServer PowerShell module.

Note

There are two SQL Server PowerShell modules:

  • SQLPS: This module is included with the SQL Server installation (for backwards compatibility), but is no longer being updated. The most up-to-date PowerShell module is the SqlServer module.
  • SqlServer: This module includes new cmdlets to support the latest SQL features. The module also contains updated versions of the cmdlets in SQLPS.

Previous versions of the SqlServer module were included with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), but only with the 16.x versions of SSMS. To use PowerShell with SSMS 17.0 and later, the SqlServer module must be installed from the PowerShell Gallery. The current version of the SqlServer module is 21.0.17279. This is based on version v140 of Microsoft.SQLServer.SMO.
If you are looking for a version of the module that supports the next version of SQL Server (based on version v150 of Microsoft.SQLServer.SMO), please refer to the section at the bottom of this page on how to get pre-release versions of the module. The latest pre-release version of the module is 21.1.18040-preview.

To install the SqlServer module from the PowerShell Gallery, start a PowerShell session and use the following commands. If you run into problems installing, see the Install-Module documentation and Install-Module reference.

To install the SqlServer module:

Install-Module -Name SqlServer

If there are previous versions of the SqlServer module on the computer, you may be able to use Update-Module (later in this article), or provide the -AllowClobber parameter:

Install-Module -Name SqlServer -AllowClobber

If you are not able to run the PowerShell session as administrator, you can install for the current user:

Install-Module -Name SqlServer -Scope CurrentUser

When updated versions of the SqlServer module are available, you can update the version using Update-Module:

Update-Module -Name SqlServer

To view the versions of the module installed:

Get-Module SqlServer -ListAvailable

To use a specific version of the module, you can import it with a specific version number similar to the following:

Import-Module SqlServer -Version 21.0.17178

Note

Prerelease (or "preview") versions of the module may be available on the PowerShell Gallery. They may be discovered and installed by using the updated Find-Module and Install-Module cmdlets that are part of the PowerShellGet module) by passing the -AllowPrerelease switch.

To discover the prerelease/preview version of the module, you can run the following command:

Find-Module SqlServer -AllowPrerelease

To install a specific prerelease/preview version of the module, you can install it with a specific version number similar to the following:

Install-Module SqlServer -RequiredVersion 21.1.18040-preview -AllowPrerelease

The versions of the SqlServer module in the PowerShell Gallery support versioning and require PowerShell version 5.0 or greater.