chrishuffman5/cli-powershell-7.6

PowerShell 7.6 LTS

Released: March 18, 2026 | LTS: 3 years | Runtime: .NET 10

PowerShell 7.6 is the latest LTS release, graduating several experimental features and shipping on .NET 10 for improved performance.

Graduated Experimental Features

PSFeedbackProvider (No Flag Needed)

# Mistype a command — PS 7.6 suggests corrections
# Example: type "get-chiditem" → "Did you mean Get-ChildItem?"

# Register custom feedback providers
Register-PSFeedbackProvider -Name 'MyProvider' -ScriptBlock { }

PSRedirectToVariable

# Redirect error stream to variable using Variable: drive
Get-ChildItem /nonexistent 2> Variable:myErrors
$myErrors   # contains ErrorRecord objects

# Redirect info stream
Write-Information 'test' 6> Variable:infoLog

PSNativeWindowsTildeExpansion

# Before 7.6: ~ did NOT expand in native command arguments on Windows
# After 7.6: ~ expands correctly
notepad.exe ~/Documents/notes.txt   # works like Linux/macOS now

New Cmdlet Enhancements

Join-Path Multi-Child (Breaking Change)

# Before: had to chain Join-Path calls
# Join-Path C:\ -ChildPath 'Program Files' | Join-Path -ChildPath 'App'

# After (7.6): -ChildPath accepts string[]
$path = Join-Path 'C:\' -ChildPath 'Program Files', 'MyApp', 'config.xml'
# Result: C:\Program Files\MyApp\config.xml

Tab Completion Improvements

# Path completion across all providers
# Module short-name completion (e.g., 'PSRead' → PSReadLine)
# Value completion for additional cmdlet parameters

# NativeFallback completer for native tools
Register-ArgumentCompleter -NativeFallback -ScriptBlock {
    param($wordToComplete, $commandAst, $cursorPosition)
    # fallback completer for ALL native commands
}

Breaking Changes from 7.4

ThreadJob Module Renamed

# Before 7.6:
Import-Module ThreadJob

# PS 7.6: renamed to Microsoft.PowerShell.ThreadJob
Import-Module Microsoft.PowerShell.ThreadJob
# Start-ThreadJob cmdlet name unchanged

WildcardPattern.Escape()

Lone backticks now correctly escaped. Test wildcard patterns that use backticks.

PSReadLine 2.4.5

# Bug fixes for crashes and incorrect behavior
# Enhanced prediction stability
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionSource HistoryAndPlugin
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle InlineView

.NET 10 Benefits

• JIT improvements and smaller memory footprint
• New APIs: spans, memory-efficient string operations
• LINQ improvements passed through to PS pipeline operations

Installation

# Windows (winget)
winget install Microsoft.PowerShell --version 7.6.0

# Verify
$PSVersionTable.PSVersion   # 7.6.x
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::FrameworkDescription
# .NET 10.x.x

Windows PowerShell 5.1 vs PowerShell 7.x

Key Differences

| Aspect | PS 5.1 | PS 7.x | |--------|--------|--------| | Runtime | .NET Framework 4.x | .NET 10 (7.6) | | Executable | powershell.exe | pwsh.exe | | Platform | Windows only | Windows, Linux, macOS | | Default encoding | UTF-16 LE | UTF-8 (no BOM) | | Ternary ? : | Not supported | Supported | | Null operators ?? ??= ?. | Not supported | Supported | | Pipeline chains && \|\| | Not supported | Supported | | ForEach-Object -Parallel | Not available | Available | | SSH remoting | Not available | Available | | Write-Host stream | Not capturable | Goes to Information stream (6) |

Cross-Version Compatibility

# Detect version at runtime
if ($PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major -ge 7) {
    $result = $x ?? 'default'
} else {
    $result = if ($null -ne $x) { $x } else { 'default' }
}

# Use #Requires to enforce
#Requires -PSEdition Core       # PS 7.x only
#Requires -PSEdition Desktop    # Windows PS 5.1 only

# Run 5.1 modules from PS7
Import-Module -UseWindowsPowerShell ActiveDirectory

# Check module compatibility
$module = Get-Module -Name MyModule -ListAvailable
$module.CompatiblePSEditions

Common Traps

1. ConvertTo-Json depth -- default depth 2, always specify -Depth 10
2. $LASTEXITCODE -- more consistently set in 7.x
3. Out-File encoding -- 5.1 defaults to UTF-16 LE; 7.x defaults to UTF-8
4. Snap-ins removed -- PS7 removed snap-in support entirely