What's New in PowerShell 7.5

Article
12/05/2024

PowerShell 7.5-rc.1 includes the following features, updates, and breaking changes. PowerShell 7.5 is built on .NET 9.0.100 GA release.

For a complete list of changes, see the CHANGELOG in the GitHub repository.

Breaking Changes

Fix -OlderThan and -NewerThan parameters for Test-Path when using PathType and date range (#20942) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod!)
- Previously -OlderThan would be ignored if specified together
Change New-FileCatalog -CatalogVersion default to 2 (#20428) (Thanks @ThomasNieto!)
Block getting help from network locations in restricted remoting sessions (#20593)
The Windows installer now remembers installation options used and uses them to initialize options for the next installation (#20420) (Thanks @reduckted!)
ConvertTo-Json now serializes BigInteger as a number (#21000) (Thanks @jborean93!)

Updated modules

PowerShell 7.5-rc.1 includes the following updated modules:

Microsoft.PowerShell.PSResourceGet v1.1.0-RC2
PSReadLine v2.3.6

Tab completion improvements

Many thanks to @ArmaanMcleod and others for all their work to improve tab completion.

Fall back to type inference when hashtable key-value cannot be retrieved from safe expression (#21184) (Thanks @MartinGC94!)
Fix the regression when doing type inference for $_ (#21223) (Thanks @MartinGC94!)
Expand ~ to $home on Windows with tab completion (#21529)
Don't complete when declaring parameter name and class member (#21182) (Thanks @MartinGC94!)
Prevent fallback to file completion when tab completing type names (#20084) (Thanks @MartinGC94)
Add argument completer to -Version for Set-StrictMode (#20554) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod!)
Add -Verb argument completer for Get-Verb/ Get-Command and refactor Get-Verb (#20286) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod)
Add -Verb argument completer for Start-Process (#20415) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod)
Add -Scope argument completer for *-Variable, *-Alias & *-PSDrive commands (#20451) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod)
Add -Module completion for Save-Help/Update-Help commands (#20678) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod)

New cmdlets

Add ConvertTo-CliXml and ConvertFrom-CliXml cmdlets (#21063) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod!)

Web cmdlets improvements

Fix to allow -PassThru and -Outfile work together (#24086)
Add OutFile property in WebResponseObject (#24047)
Show filename in Invoke-WebRequest -OutFile -Verbose (#24041)
Fix WebCmdlets when -Body is specified but ContentType is not (#23952) (Thanks @CarloToso!)
Fix Invoke-WebRequest to report correct size when -Resume is specified (#20207) (Thanks @LNKLEO!)
Fix Web Cmdlets to allow WinForm apps to work correctly (#20606)

Other cmdlet improvements

Enable -NoRestart to work with Register-PSSessionConfiguration (#23891)
Add IgnoreComments and AllowTrailingCommas options to Test-Json cmdlet (#23817) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod!)
Get-Help may report parameters with ValueFromRemainingArguments attribute as pipeline-able (#23871)
Change type of LineNumber to ulong in Select-String (#24075) (Thanks @Snowman-25!)
Get-Process: Remove admin requirement for -IncludeUserName (#21302) (Thanks @jborean93!)
Fix Test-Path -IsValid to check for invalid path and filename characters (#21358)
Add RecommendedAction to ConciseView of the error reporting (#20826) (Thanks @JustinGrote!)
Added progress bar for Remove-Item cmdlet (#20778) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod!)
Fix Test-Connection due to .NET 8 changes (#20369)
Fix Get-Service non-terminating error message to include category (#20276)
Add -Empty and -InputObject parameters to New-Guid (#20014) (Thanks @CarloToso!)
Add the alias r to the parameter -Recurse for the Get-ChildItem command (#20100) (Thanks @kilasuit!)
Add LP to LiteralPath aliases for functions still missing it (#20820)
Add implicit localization fallback to Import-LocalizedData (#19896) (Thanks @chrisdent-de!)
Add Aliases to the properties shown up when formatting the help content of the parameter returned by Get-Help (#20994)
Add HelpUri to Remove-Service (#20476)
Fix completion crash for the SCCM provider (#20815, #20919, #20915) (Thanks @MartinGC94!)
Fix regression in Get-Content when -Tail 0 and -Wait are used together (#20734) (Thanks @CarloToso!)
Fix Start-Process -PassThru to make sure the ExitCode property is accessible for the returned Process object (#20749) (Thanks @CodeCyclone!)
Fix Group-Object to use current culture for its output (#20608)
Fix Group-Object output using interpolated strings (#20745) (Thanks @mawosoft!)
Fix rendering of DisplayRoot for network PSDrive (#20793)
Fix Copy-Item progress to only show completed when all files are copied (#20517)
Fix UNC path completion regression (#20419) (Thanks @MartinGC94!)
Report error if invalid -ExecutionPolicy is passed to pwsh (#20460)
Add WinGetCommandNotFound and CompletionPredictor modules to track usage (#21040)
Add DateKind parameter to ConvertFrom-Json (#20925) (Thanks @jborean93!)
Add DirectoryInfo to the OutputType for New-Item (#21126) (Thanks @MartinGC94!)
Fix Get-Error serialization of array values (#21085) (Thanks @jborean93!)
Fix Test-ModuleManifest so it can use a UNC path (#24115)
Fix Get-TypeData to write to the pipeline immediately instead of collecting data first (#24236) (Thanks @MartinGC94)
Add -Force parameter to Resolve-Path and Convert-Path cmdlets to support wildcard hidden files #20981 (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod!)

Engine improvements

Explicitly start and stop ANSI Error Color (#24065) (Thanks @JustinGrote!)
Improve .NET overload definition of generic methods (#21326) (Thanks @jborean93!)
Optimize the += operation for a collection when it's an object array (#23901) (Thanks @jborean93!)
Add telemetry to check for specific tags when importing a module (#20371)
Add PSAdapter and ConsoleGuiTools to module load telemetry allowlist (#20641)
Add Winget module to track usage (#21040)
Ensure the filename is not null when logging WDAC ETW events (#20910) (Thanks @jborean93!)
Fix four regressions introduced by the WDAC logging feature (#20913)
Leave the input, output, and error handles unset when they are not redirected (#20853)
Fix implicit remoting proxy cmdlets to act on common parameters (#20367)
Include the module version in error messages when module is not found (#20144) (Thanks @ArmaanMcleod!)
Fix unixmode to handle setuid and sticky when file is not an executable (#20366)
Fix using assembly to use Path.Combine when constructing assembly paths (#21169)
Validate the value for using namespace during semantic checks to prevent declaring invalid namespaces (#21162)
Handle global tool specially when prepending $PSHome to PATH (#24228)

Experimental features

The following experimental features were converted to mainstream features in PowerShell 7.5-rc.1:

The following experimental features are included in PowerShell 7.5-rc.1:

PSRedirectToVariable - Allow redirecting to a variable (#20381)
PSNativeWindowsTildeExpansion - Add tilde expansion for windows native executables (#20402) (Thanks @domsleee!)
PSSerializeJSONLongEnumAsNumber - ConvertTo-Json now treats large enums as numbers (#20999) (Thanks @jborean93!)

Performance improvements

PowerShell 7.5-rc.1 included PR#23901 from @jborean93 that improves the performance of the += operation for an array of objects.

The following example measures the performance for different methods of adding elements to an array.

$tests = @{
    'Direct Assignment' = {
        param($count)

    $result = foreach($i in 1..$count) {
            $i
        }
    }
    'List<T>.Add(T)' = {
        param($count)

        $result = [Collections.Generic.List[int]]::new()
        foreach($i in 1..$count) {
            $result.Add($i)
        }
    }
    'Array+= Operator' = {
        param($count)

        $result = @()
        foreach($i in 1..$count) {
            $result += $i
        }
    }
}

5kb, 10kb | ForEach-Object {
    $groupResult = foreach($test in $tests.GetEnumerator()) {
        $ms = (Measure-Command { & $test.Value -Count $_ }).TotalMilliseconds

[pscustomobject]@{
            CollectionSize    = $_
            Test              = $test.Key
            TotalMilliseconds = [math]::Round($ms, 2)
        }

[GC]::Collect()
        [GC]::WaitForPendingFinalizers()
    }

$groupResult = $groupResult | Sort-Object TotalMilliseconds
    $groupResult | Select-Object *, @{
        Name       = 'RelativeSpeed'
        Expression = {
            $relativeSpeed = $_.TotalMilliseconds / $groupResult[0].TotalMilliseconds
            $speed = [math]::Round($relativeSpeed, 2).ToString() + 'x'
            if ($speed -eq '1x') { $speed } else { $speed + ' slower' }
        }
    } | Format-Table -AutoSize
}

When you run the script in PowerShell 7.4.6, you see that using the += operator is the slowest method.

CollectionSize Test                TotalMilliseconds RelativeSpeed
-------------- ----                ----------------- -------------
          5120 Direct Assignment                4.17 1x
          5120 List<T>.Add(T)                  90.79 21.77x slower
          5120 Array+= Operator               342.58 82.15x slower


CollectionSize Test                TotalMilliseconds RelativeSpeed
-------------- ----                ----------------- -------------
         10240 Direct Assignment                0.64 1x
         10240 List<T>.Add(T)                 184.10 287.66x slower
         10240 Array+= Operator              1668.13 2606.45x slower

When you run the script in PowerShell 7.5-rc.1, you see that using the += operator is much faster than PowerShell 7.4.6. Now, it's also faster than using the List<T>.Add(T) method.

CollectionSize Test                TotalMilliseconds RelativeSpeed
-------------- ----                ----------------- -------------
          5120 Direct Assignment                4.71 1x
          5120 Array+= Operator                40.42 8.58x slower
          5120 List<T>.Add(T)                  92.17 19.57x slower


CollectionSize Test                TotalMilliseconds RelativeSpeed
-------------- ----                ----------------- -------------
         10240 Direct Assignment                1.76 1x
         10240 Array+= Operator               104.73 59.51x slower
         10240 List<T>.Add(T)                 173.00 98.3x slower

Share via