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about_Update_Notifications

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Short description

Notifies users on startup of PowerShell that a new version of PowerShell has been released.

Long description

Beginning with PowerShell 7.0, PowerShell uses update notifications to alert users to the existence of updates to PowerShell. Once per day, PowerShell queries an online service to determine if a newer version is available.

Note

While the update check happens during the first session in a given 24-hour period, for performance reasons, PowerShell shows the notification on the start of subsequent sessions. Also for performance reasons, the check for updates starts 3 seconds after the session begins.

By default, PowerShell subscribes to different notification channels depending on its version and branch. Generally Available (GA) versions of PowerShell only return notifications for updated GA releases. Preview and Release Candidate (RC) versions notify of updates to preview, RC, and GA releases.

Manage notification behavior

You can change the behavior of the update notification by setting the POWERSHELL_UPDATECHECK environment variable. The following values are supported:

  • Off turns off the update notification feature
  • Default is the same as not defining POWERSHELL_UPDATECHECK:
    • GA releases notify of updates to GA releases
    • Preview/RC releases notify of updates to GA and preview releases
  • LTS only notifies of updates to long-term-servicing (LTS) GA releases

You must set this environment variable before PowerShell starts. For more information about setting environment variables, see about_Environment_Variables.

Notification endpoints

PowerShell uses the following endpoints for determining the latest version available for each channel:

The update notification doesn't provide any way to automatically update PowerShell. In the future, there may be more instructions or capabilities to update from within PowerShell, but today, you should use the same install mechanism you used to install PowerShell to update it.