What is Windows PowerShell $profile?
In Windows PowerShell, $profile is a special variable that represents the user-specific profile script. The profile script is a PowerShell script file that is automatically executed every time a PowerShell session starts for a particular user. It allows you to define custom settings, aliases, functions, variables, and other configurations that are specific to your user account and PowerShell sessions.
You can find the paths to your profile scripts by executing the following commands in a PowerShell session
$profile $profile.CurrentUserCurrentHost $profile.CurrentUserAllHosts $profile.AllUsersCurrentHost $profile.AllUsersAllHosts Output C:\Users\me\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 C:\Users\me\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 C:\Users\me\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\profile.ps1 C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\profile.ps1
Create profile
New-item –type file –force $PROFILE
notepad $profile ise $profile
One frustrating aspect of PowerShell is that you can’t easily create folder navigation aliases like %alias me= “cd me” as in the regular linux style bash shell. However, you can achieve similar functionality with the following:
If you define $me= “C:\Users\me\me”, you can navigate to that folder using > cd $me.
If you define function me(){cd “C:\Users\me\me”}, you can navigate to the desired folder using > me.
If your goal is just navigation, defining a function is better, but if you frequently refer to a specific folder, defining a variable can be more convenient.
You can reload the settings with
. $profile
#################################################### # Windows Powershell Profile # Path C:\Users\user\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile # Profile Type Command Host Profile File Name Profile File Location # $PSHOME # # PATH # 1 CurrentUserCurrentHost # $profile # # 2 CurrentUserAllHosts # $profile.CurrentUserAllHosts # # 3 AllUsersCurrentHost # $profile.AllUsersCurrentHost # # 4 AllUsersAllHosts # $profile.AllUsersAllHosts # # CLI crud # Check profile existency # $PROFILE # $PROFILE | Get-Member -Type NoteProperty # # Create new profile # New-Item -Type File -Force $PROFILE # # Update or Edit profile # notepad $PROFILE # ise $PROFILE # # Powershell version # Get-Host # # Reference # https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_profiles?view=powershell-7.2 #################################################### Get-TimeZone # v2023.2.029 # Aliase to C:\Users\me\me $me="C:\Users\me\me"
