Skip to content

RFC0066-PowerShell-User-Content-Location.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
79 lines (62 loc) · 3.29 KB

RFC0066-PowerShell-User-Content-Location.md

File metadata and controls

79 lines (62 loc) · 3.29 KB
RFC RFC0066
Author Justin Chung
Status Draft
SupercededBy N/A
Version 1.0
Area Core
Comments Due 05/03/2025
Plan to implement true

PowerShell User Content Location

This RFC proposes moving the current PowerShell user content location out of OneDrive to the AppData directory on Windows machines.

Motivation

  • PowerShell currently places profile, modules, and configuration files in the user's Documents folder, which is against established conventions for shell configurations and tools.

  • PowerShell content files in OneDrive can lead to unwanted syncing of module files, leading to various issues.

  • There is strong community demand for changing this behavior as the current setup is problematic for many users.

  • Changing the default location would align PowerShell with other developer tools and improve usability.

    As a user, I can customize the location where PowerShell user content is installed, so that I can avoid problems created by file sync solutions like OneDrive.

User Experience

  • On startup PowerShell will create a directory in AppData and a configuration file.
  • In the configuration file the user scoped PSModulePath will point to AppData/PowerShell/Modules.
  • Users can opt out of this new location by specifying a desired user scoped module path in the configuration file.

Specification

  • The content folder location change will only apply to PowerShell on Windows.

  • Configurability of the content folder will apply to all systems.

  • This will be an experimental feature.

  • The PowerShell user content folder will be located in the $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\PowerShell.

  • A configuration file in the PowerShell user content folder will determine the location of the user scoped PSModulePath.

  • The user will be responsible for specifying thier desired install location using PSResourceGet.

  • The location of Modules is configurable

  • The location of this folder is not configurable.

  • The proposed directory structure:

    C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\PowerShell
    ├── PSContent (Configurable) └── PSModulePathConfig.json (Not Configurable)

    PSContent (Configurable) ├── Scripts (Not Configurable) ├── Modules (Not Configurable) ├── Help (Not Configurable) └── profile.ps1 (Not Configurable)

  • The configuration file:

    {
    "UserPSContentPath" : "C:\\Users\\User\\PowerShell"
}

Alternate Proposals and Considerations

  • The following functionalities will be affected:

    • SecretManagement

      • SecretManagement extension vaults are registered for the current user context in: $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\PowerShell\secretmanagement\secretvaultregistry\

        When an extension vault is registered, SecretManagement stores the full path to the extension module in the registry. Moving the PowerShell content to a new location will break the vault registrations.

  • Use the following script to relocate the PowerShell contents folder:

    $newPath = "C:\Custom\PowerShell\Modules"
$currentUserModulePath = [System.Environment]::GetFolderPath('MyDocuments') + "\PowerShell\Modules"
Move-Item -Path $currentUserModulePath -Destination $newPath -Force