In an earlier article, I described how to create a PowerShell Profile, specifically so that you could access PowerCLI snapins in the regular PowerShell or PowerShell ISE programs where you get tab completion and intellitype. However, it was buried in the midst of another article where it was hard to find.

The below PoSH will create a new profile if it doesn’t exist and add the VMware snapins, then it will open the profile file for editing. PowerShell and PowerShell ISE each have their own profile file, so run it in both if you need to.

Run the suggested commands below for the correct version of PowerCLI. If you have statements in your profile from a previous version of PowerCLI, clean them up by hand, or delete your profile and re-run the script to start with a blank profile. Note: This would wipe out any non-PowerCLI commands in your profile as well, such as those added by Chocolatey.

PowerCLI 6.5.1+

You don’t need a special profile anymore, there’s a new way to install that doesn’t require modifying the profile afterward. The instructions are simple. If you’ve set up one of the profiles below, I wrote up how to undo it.

PowerCLI 6.5 GA

Download. If you encounter errors after upgrading from a previous version, check the value of $env:PSModulePath. It should contain the path C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\PowerCLI\Modules rather than the older C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI\Modules. If it is incorrect, try a reboot, though the installer does not suggest one is required; that fixed the problem for me.

if (! (Test-Path $profile)) {
  New-Item -Path $profile -Type file -Force
}
''                                                        | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
'# Import PowerCLI modules'                               | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
'Get-Module -Name VMware* -ListAvailable | Import-Module' | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
notepad $profile

PowerCLI 6.0-6.3

if (! (Test-Path $profile)) {
    New-Item -Path $profile -Type file -Force
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core -ea "SilentlyContinue"' | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.DeployAutomation -ea "SilentlyContinue"'   | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.ImageBuilder -ea "SilentlyContinue"'       | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.Core'                       | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.Vds'                        | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.License'                    | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
}
notepad $profile

PowerCLI 5.5 and Below

if (! (Test-Path $profile)) {
    New-Item -Path $profile -Type file -Force
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core -ea "SilentlyContinue"'    | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Vds -ea "SilentlyContinue"'     | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.License -ea "SilentlyContinue"' | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud -ea "SilentlyContinue"'   | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.DeployAutomation -ea "SilentlyContinue"'      | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append 
    'Add-PSSnapin VMware.ImageBuilder -ea "SilentlyContinue"'          | Out-File -FilePath $profile -Append
}
notepad $profile

Verify the profile contents are correct (this should preserve existing profiles, but check that new content didn’t merge at the end of the previous content). You can add any additional PoSH commands, such as aliases, to your profile, then save the file. Restart Powershell (ISE). Your startup will take a little longer now, but you end up with tab completion, intellitype AND PowerCLI. If you messed anything up, you should still have notepad open, just edit what’s needed and restart the PoSH shell till you get it right.

Alan Renouf gave a vBrownBag presentation on Advanced PowerCLI 5.5R2 last night. During the show, he showed an interesting bit of code:

$output = "" | Select VmName, PgName
$output.VmName = "value1"
$output.PgName = "value2"

This was intriguing to me. The “proper” way to create an object with attributes is to use New-Object and pipeline it through some Add-Member commands.

$output = New-Object PSObject |
Add-Member -PassThru NoteProperty VmName "value1" |
Add-Member -PassThru NoteProperty PgName "value2"

That creates an excessive, and somewhat unreadable, pipeline for objects with a long list of members, especially if a member’s name is long. It’s a pretty neat trick to make your code look pretty neat.

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