Running PowerShell v2 scripts on Windows 2012

This post will explain the procedure involved in enabling the PowerShell V2 engine in Windows 2012 server.

I got my Windows 2012 Server up today. As most of you already aware Windows 2012 comes with PowerShell V3 by default. So, that doesn’t mean that you have to upgrade all of your PowerShell V2 scripts to V3 version. There is a backward compatibility option available. But this is optional and not enabled by default. Follow the below steps to enable the backward compatibility by installing PowerShell v2 engine.

•  Open Server Manager
• Click on Add Roles or Features
• Select “Role-Based or Feature-Based installation” on Installation Type page
• In the server selection section, make sure that local server is selected
• Click next on “Server Roles” page without selecting any
• On “Features” page, expand “Windows PowerShell (Installed)” and select “Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine” as shown below

• Upon selecting the option you will see another prompt like below to install the required pre-requisites.

• Click “Add Features to Continue
• On the “Confirm Installation Selections” page, click Install. The installation may requires media, so ensure that it is available.

• Installation will take a while and be patient.
• This completes the installation.

Launching the PowerShell V2 Console on Windows 2012:

You can use the below command to launch PowerShell V2 and you can run your Powershell V2 scripts from this console. You may verify the version of this console by using Get-Host cmdlet.

powershell.exe -version 2

Hope this helps…