What you need to know
- PowerShell 7.1 is now available across all major platforms.
- It's the first version of PowerShell to be available through the Microsoft Store.
- PowerShell 7.1 doesn't have any new features, instead focusing on improvements.
PowerShell 7.1 is now available across all major platforms. You can download the latest version of PowerShell for Windows, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora, Alpine, and macOS. In addition to rolling out to all major platforms, for the first time ever, PowerShell is available through the Microsoft Store.
PowerShell 7.1 doesn't include any major new features. Instead, its developers prioritized fixing issues and building on top of PowerShell 7.0. Some big changes came with PowerShell 7.0, including a move from .NET Core 2.x to version 3.1. At its release, PowerShell 7.0 was called the "one, true PowerShell" because it unified Windows PowerShell and PowerShell Core.
A new Microsoft devblogs post](/), describes how the PowerShell team focused on building on the foundation of PowerShell 7.0:
For PowerShell 7.1, we decided to build on the foundation established in PowerShell 7.0 with a strong focus on community issues, especially where we could make additive changes and quality-of-life improvements without introducing instability or breaking changes. As a platform with over 115 million sessions per month, we're absolutely committed to ensuring that PowerShell remains a stable and performant platform, even after significant version upgrades like 7.1.
The complete changelog for PowerShell 7.1 doesn't list any major new features either. It does list a few experimental features:
- Add -Runspace parameter to all *-PSBreakpoint cmdlets (#10492) (Thanks @KirkMunro!)
- Support passing PSPath to native commands (#12386)
- Use invariant culture string conversion for -replace operator (#10954) (Thanks @iSazonov!)
The changelog also includes a long list of fixes and guides or links for installing PowerShell on different devices.
