Still today, most enterprise companies use more Windows 7 clients than clients on Windows 10. As support for Windows 7 ends in January 2020, most customers are currently in a complex migration process. You are probably facing new challenges that come with application compatibility and Windows as a Service. With Windows 10, PowerShell version 5.1 is automatically shipped. However, from our experience, a lower PowerShell version is being used on Windows 7 machines because customers did not update it.

As you have learned from the Chapter 1, Current PowerShell Versions, the lastest version of Windows PowerShell is version 5.1. You have also learned how to update the PowerShell version on these Windows 7 machines and any of the following list:

• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
• Windows 8.1
• Windows 7 SP1

This step is of crucial importance and we can recognize this fact by taking a dedicated look at an excerpt of the release notes:

• Support for enforced ConstrainedLanguageMode
• Constrained file copying to/from JEA endpoints
• JEA support for Group Managed Service Accounts and Conditional Access Policies
• Support for catalog signed modules in PowerShell Get
• Specifying which module version to load in a script
• Improvements in PowerShell Script Debugging
• Improved PowerShell usage auditing using Transcription and Logging

Therefore, one of the first steps should be to update the PowerShell version on all available clients to Windows PowerShell 5.1 with WMF 5.1. The impact of this update is very low and it is very unlikely to experience any issues as a result.