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about_Telemetry

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Short description

Describes the telemetry collected in PowerShell and how to opt-out.

Long description

PowerShell sends basic telemetry data to Microsoft using Application Insights. This data allows us to better understand the environments using PowerShell and enables us to prioritize new features and fixes. PowerShell anonymizes the telemetry information before sending.

PowerShell sends the following information at startup:

  • The manufacturer, name, and version of the operating system
  • The version of PowerShell
  • The value of the POWERSHELL_DISTRIBUTION_CHANNEL environment variable
  • The version of the Application Insights SDK used by PowerShell
  • The geographic location of the host, based on the IP address
  • The parameters passed to pwsh without the parameter values
  • The Execution Policy setting of the current session
  • A randomly generated GUID representing the user running the instance
  • A randomly generated GUID representing the session instance

Startup telemetry data is only collected when starting the pwsh executable. This information isn't sent if the PowerShell engine is embedded in some other host application.

Note

Application Insights uses the hosts IP Address to determine the geographic location. The IP Address is never included in the telemetry data or stored in the database. For more information, see Geolocation and IP address handling.

PowerShell sends the following information during the session:

  • The count of calls to the PowerShell.Create() API
  • The names and versions of Microsoft-owned modules imported
  • The count of imported modules that have the CrescendoBuilt tag
  • The names of enabled experimental features
  • The names of disabled experimental features
  • Value of $PSNativeCommandUseErrorActionPreference preference variable, either true, false or unset
  • The count of remote session open operations

PowerShell sends this information periodically during the lifetime of the session for all host applications.

To opt-out of this telemetry, set the environment variable $env:POWERSHELL_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT to true, yes, or 1. For this environment variable to have effect, it must be set before starting the PowerShell process. For more information, see about_Environment_Variables.

The $env:POWERSHELL_DISTRIBUTION_CHANNEL environment variable is set by the installer packages to record the method and source of installation for PowerShell. Since this information is included in the telemetry data sent to Microsoft, users shouldn't change this value.

For more information about these environment variables, see about_Environment_Variables.

For more information about Microsoft's statement on privacy, see Microsoft Privacy Statement