Powershell title bar and profile

This is a very simple post, but it shows how to make the Powershell title bar contain useful information. By default the Powershell title contains the path to the powershell.exe file — here is an example:

To make this more useful, I’ve added a line to my powershell profile that looks like this:

$host.ui.rawui.WindowTitle="PowerShell $($psversiontable.psversion) as $($env:username)"

*Note: all this text should appear on the same line in your profile.

This change adds the Powershell version number and running user name to the title bar. This is useful in my environment because I often have the need to run Powershell as a different user. Here is an example of the update:

I placed this in the all users profile located here:

%windir%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\profile.ps1 

This profile is machine specific and executes anytime you open a powershell console for any user. While you have the profile open, I have one more time saving suggestion. If you use the Send-MailMessage cmdlet often, add this line:

$PSEmailServer = "smtp-relay.mydomain.local"

With this variable specified, you no longer need the “-SmtpServer” attribute to send a message — this global variable will automatically be used.

Hope this helps!

This entry was posted in Scripting. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.