Most of the time we have been used to cmdlets and it’s various features but do not know about the version and hence this post might help some of you to understand in finding different versions of PowerShell and how to switch between versions (provided multiple versions are installed on your Machine). I’m using Where clause syntax to explain version switching.

Code to find version-

PS:\>Get-Host | Select-Object Version

Version
——-
2.0

PS:\>$Host.Version

Major  Minor  Build   Revision
—–    —–    —–    ——–
2        0         -1      -1

PS:\>$PSVersionTable.PSVersion

Major  Minor  Build   Revision
—–    —–    —–    ——–
3        0         -1      -1

Switch between versions –

Goto Cmd Prompt and type the below command

C:\> Powershell -version 2

PS C:\>Get-Host | select Version

#v2 syntax

PS C:\> Get-Service | Where {$_.name -like “*SQL*”}

Status       Name                              DisplayName
——          —-                                 ———–
Stopped   MSSQL$MICROSOFT…  Windows Internal Database (MICROSOF…
Running   SQLWriter                       SQL Server VSS Writer

PS C:\> Get-Service | where name -like “*SQL*”

Error Message –

where : Cannot bind parameter ‘FilterScript’. Cannot convert the “name” value of type “System.String” to type “System.Management.Automation.ScriptBlock”.

C:\> powershell -version 3

PS C:\> Get-Host | Select Version

PS C:\> Get-Service | where {$_.name -like “*SQL*”}

Status       Name                              DisplayName
——          —-                                 ———–
Stopped   MSSQL$MICROSOFT…  Windows Internal Database (MICROSOF…
Running   SQLWriter                       SQL Server VSS Writer

#v3 syntax

PS C:\> Get-Service | Where name -like “*SQL*”

Status       Name                              DisplayName

——          —-                                 ———–
Stopped   MSSQL$MICROSOFT…  Windows Internal Database (MICROSOF…
Running   SQLWriter                       SQL Server VSS Writer

Syntax for Where-Object

V2 Syntax : Where-Object { $_.<property name> }
V3 Syntax : Where-Object <property name> #Supports V2 syntax