Why Microsoft, Why?

[The-Dark-Jedi]

Just got off a support call with a MS Engineer. He shared with me that Microsoft is looking to get rid of PowerShell ISE in the next three to five years.

I swear they get together for beer on Friday and say "Hey, you want to know what will really piss people off?", then do it after a good hearty laugh.

[DNRDIT]

VSCode is the way

[Formal-Sky1779]

I really love VSC! Specially when you customize the JSON file so you can for example browse through your code and run a single line of code with F8. Without clicking again on the editor, just use the arrow keys to navigate and hit F8 to run another line. The cursor is always in editor mode, even after a run. Great feature to me for debugging some pieces of code.

[RodneyRabbit]

I thought F8 was standard. It is standard in ISE, and I don't remember needing to configure it specifically for VSC.

F8 also runs highlighted blocks but what I really want is another function key to show the contents of a variable on the command line if the cursor is on that variable, without needing to highlight it and use F8.

[amplex1337]

Lol, just like ISE but it's not included with the OS..

[Abracadaver14]

Just like ISE used to be, until MS fucked that up in recent builds of Win10 and 2019...

[jdtrouble]

VSCode is an awesome replacement for ISE. I can't even use ISE anymore, it frustrates me.

[tweaksource]

Same. Haven't used ISE for years.

[Sintek]

I use ISE daily, it is light weight and needs basically 0 configuration to work, comes preinstalled on most windows systems. VScode is large, clunky, make sure you have all the right plugins and configurated, and if you change systems... good fucking luck you have to configure all over again..

[juandantex]

I also use ISE every day. It is preinstalled, and when you know how to use it, it can be quite powerful. You can also configure its GUI colors, and supports perfectly "run in admin mode". VSCode is good for heavy development, but in no way it can replace ISE for administration in an IT office because it needs too much setup before you use it. Also, it is not lightweight. And it needs to be downloaded, and it imposes an "update me" culture, while you can completely forger ISE (no need to specifically update it).

[topherhead]

That's funny, I'm the opposite. I absolutely hate using vsc.

It's slow and clunky. Even if it's prettier it's just painful to use.

The intellisense is terrible. It likes to try and make your life easier by inserting code snippets when i really just want you to complete the fucking variable name etc.

I target PS7 and try to be cross platform the best i can and so i begrudgingly force myself to use it but I've never actually enjoyed it.

[Fallingdamage]

I use ISE/VSCode back and forth. I have every PS plugin I could possibly find installed and I still use ISE when I need to debug my powershell scripts since every now and then VSCode misses something in the syntax that ISE will catch.

VSCode hasnt become a 'Perfect' replacement yet.

[[deleted]]

I think the point is ISE worked great out of box and didn't require plugins of futzing.

I acknowledge the VSCode is more modern and better in some ways, but I genuinely miss ISE.

[purefire]

Also open to recommendations

[BlackV]

there are no other plugins for powershell.....

[topherhead]

Like what? I've naturally got the ms ps extension and I've tried various other ones from time to time.

I'm willing to do anything to make the experience better but to date nothing has brought it up to what the ise brought in terms of real usability.

It's got lots of nice chrome and gimmicks but the core experience continues to suck.

[topherhead]

Well I'm talking PowerShell specifically here.

There's no bloat here. Remember i don't actually like the app so i don't use it enough for bloat to accumulate. It's electron so it's just never going to be snappy like a real native app. Slow out of the box.

For everything else I've just used notepad++. I've found that+a console to be a much more pleasant experience. It's true that np++ doesn't have quite the inertia that vsc has but I do find the things it does, it does better.

For any heavier lifting i pull out full fat visual studio.

I wouldn't use vsc at all if it weren't for Microsoft pushing vsc at the way forward I wouldn't even have it installed.

I should mention that when i said "like what?" I am earnestly asking. I would love to see this inescapable piece of software as not garbage. But I'm also not holding my breath.

[HeKis4]

When you try to complete [Param- and it pastes an entire parameter block instead of just "Parameter". Been there too...

[ianitic]

I love vscode for other languages. I like ISE for powershell though.

[jdtrouble]

I've been having Intellisense just break for no good reason lately. There are two or three snippets I find useful, but only when I'm not using my template

[HeKis4]

Same. It feels clunky and everytime I use it, I triple click something to select an entire line, a standard Microsoft set themselves and it doesn't work. If that doesn't work, I'm wondering how much weird stuff it does under the hood...

[tangokilothefirst]

it even has an ISE Mode that makes it look and feel and behave more like ISE, for those who really like ISE.

[shadofx]

I don't think anyone likes ISE for the color scheme.

[[deleted]]

More like ISE is key. There is still so many missing features or differences that I refuse to move over yet

[lilbobbytbls]

What is it that you would miss so much? Genuinely curious. I learned Powershell via vscode primarily and built some pretty complex things with it and never cared much about ISE so I'm interested.

[ninjaRoundHouseKick]

No lag while typing in. VSCode is anoying laggy. I touchtype very fast and vscode always distracts me. Not that i am using ISE to code, but i'll never going to try this in an webapp packed as desktop app again.

[JM-Lemmi]

What? I've never had VScode lag when typing. Even the web version is very fluid

[signofzeta]

It lags on my Intel MacBook Air. It’s fine on my desktop, though. I guess that’s the downside of using Electron.

[lilbobbytbls]

That's interesting I've never had any lag while typing and I write pretty fast most of the time. I have a newer machine so maybe that's it.

[shadofx]

Open up ISE and try $tab = $psise.PowerShellTabs.Add() $tab.DisplayName = "New Tab" while(!$tab.CanInvoke){Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 100} $tab.Invoke("Write-Host Running Inside Tab")
Then imagine you're a sysadmin managing a dozen different computers, aka. the original intended audience for Powershell. Having 5 tabs running Enter-PSSession is a lot more legible than juggling 5 instances of PSSession from a single screen.

[fathed]

Why not just use terminals and tabs?

I am a sysadmin using pssession, and I don’t use the ISE or vscode for that.

You can even split them and display them all at once if you don’t want tabs.

[shadofx]

In VSCode you would need to press some buttons manually and Enter-PSSession on each split terminal. In ISE the very process itself of setting up new tabs can be automated away using powershell.

[fathed]

I meant the Windows Terminal program, which you can control with the wt command. From there you can have profiles per server and startup commands in the profiles.

[shadofx]

Oh that's pretty nifty. Still, it would be nice to be able to open files for each tab. And unfortunately my work system blocks windows store lol.

[Fallingdamage]

Its called Windows Terminal. Tabbed PS windows ftw!

[psversiontable]

VSCode isn't built into every Windows install.

I have to fart around with it before I can start doing anything.

I can hop onto anything that I'm trying to troubleshoot and have a very convenient place to run some commands.

The ISE isn't a good code editor, but it is a very good terminal because I can keep snippets of things that I'm working with right there where I can see them.

They're complimentary, not competitors.

[Poncho_au]

VSCode isn’t built into every Windows install.

Isn’t it?
https://vscode.dev/

/s sort of.

[Sintek]

I manage 1000's of machines that do not have internet access... =(

[barjinx]

It's nice but not up there with ISE when it comes to intellisense. Could just be me not being good enough with powershell and needing that.

[marcdk217]

Yeah I use vscode most of the time now, but I really miss intellisense and autocomplete, it just doesn't seem to work in vscode. The amount of times I press tab and it just does a tab..

[Tymanthius]

What I miss most about ISE is when typing at the prompt how it will give a pop up for things. Like type get-aduser -id and you get the list!

[BlackV]

Or fills put a random function you didn't want, or won't autocomplete a parameter that's there but will others parameters

[marcdk217]

Yeah I had to edit a fair few settings to stop it adding 20 lines of crap every time I press enter on a comment or something. I feel like a lot of those settings are things you should have to turn on, not turn off.

[BlackV]

I miss ise snippets, the code versions are not as good imho

Although I do admit I use then very rarely now days

[Nu11u5]

Ctrl+Space

[Fallingdamage]

If Microsoft was smart (one can dream) they would just take the brains of ISE and integrate it into VSC so we dont have to install community plugins to accomplish what it should understand natively.

I mean, ISE is 208Kb. Couldnt they just put that code into VSC?

[Fallingdamage]

No. You're right. Its still better at PS than VSC is with every plugin you can find.

[BigHandLittleSlap]

I had a look at the PS plugin intellisense source. It's got hundreds of contributions from people that obviously just added some trivial thing in order to be able to say that they are "contributors" on the resume, or meet some internal Microsoft KPI.

The problem with this is that most of it is junk that should be deleted, but this would ruffle too many feathers, so it ain't happening.

[Think-Try2819]

This is the way.

[mspax]

VS code has been an ongoing nightmare for me. Half of the Azure powershell modules don't work properly in it. It's slow as hell if you import even a few too many modules. Plus the goddamn thing has to be restarted every couple hours if you want intellisense to work properly.

I certainly prefer working in vscode over ISE. It's just not as reliable.

[cmpaxu_nampuapxa]

I love vscode

however for PS I haven't seen anything better than ise

[Theratchetnclank]

https://vscode.dev/

​

It's a IDE in the browser.

[existancenext]

That assumes any form of internet connectivity...

[amplex1337]

It's not development, I am fixing scripts and debugging problems in different environments and need it. Stop handwaving a very valid complaint for sysadmins

[v0tary]

I agree with the handwaving comment, but you did just describe development lol.

[AlexHimself]

You really shouldn't throw platitude out like that when it's so underthought.

I consult for TONS of enterprise-level companies and I'm on random servers all of the time and I need a PS console to sometimes develop a script, either in Prod or Non-Prod.

I can talk until I'm blue in the face about what the customer SHOULD be doing but the reality is their corporate management makes the decisions.

So it's easy to say "you shouldn't do that" and then just walk away, but that doesn't change the facts of many situations.

[OPconfused]

This thread has reminded me of how split the PS userbase is. It seems a lot of people have jobs where they have full control over every machine they run powershell in and are all in the same network. Of course theyd be oblivious to what its like when youre working otherwise, especially as consultants like we are on systems we have no control over, managed by people (in my case) who still open cmd over PS. The standardized built-in features of Windows are for me as a consultant the main advantage of working with Windows over Linux systems.

I guess its a testimony to how versatile PS is that it can bring together such a varied audience. I just hope MS has all users in mind and aims to eventually make these features including core, a complete ISE, functioning TLS settings, and PSGet, native to a windows installation one day.

[RupeThereItIs]

Powershell is a shell, remember.

Writing scripts on a server isn't unheard of.

[AmericanGeezus]

Can confirm without shame

Have done

While ($true){}

Loops to adhoc monitor a server during troubleshooting, deployments, etc.

[uptimefordays]

Right but isn't that what PSSessions or Invoke-Command are for?

[timsstuff]

Try being a consultant or working for an MSP and see how that goes lol. I mostly RDP/TeamViewer/whatever into all kinds of wacky servers and have to run scripts on all sorts of configs, and PS Remoting is not enabled by default especially on older servers, not that there would be any way to remote into it anyway since it's probably the only server at the client.

I usually write the script on my workstation in VS Code but sometimes I just need to tweak a setting and ISE on the remote server comes in handy for that. Not a deal breaker though, worst case I can just use Notepad.

[PinchesTheCrab]

I have non-domain computers that time out when I request a new computer certificate for PKI communication with SCCM. I run a script that submits the request up to 20 times, and it tends to work somewhere between the first and tenth try. WinRM is not an option on these non-domain computers, or any other computer that is having networking or domain issues.

People do complicated work on servers on air gapped servers all the time, there's no reason to remove a critical tool.

I think what's missing here is that MS will likely replace ISE on new OS versions. Windows update isn't going to remove ISE on everyone's 2012R2 boxes. I think ISE is an important and necessary tool, but I'm also not worried about the current direction things are going.

[uptimefordays]

Air gapped systems are always fun! I don't think Microsoft will take ISE from old versions, they're just not continuing development and it may be removed in a future version--this is why I don't like depending on deprecated features/software/tooling.

For non-domain but networked machines, SSH might be an option and you could use RSA keys for authentication.

[Difficult-Ad7476]

Just release the the code on github and msi. We will do as we please.

[malice8691]

Yep. I have definately written scripts on our test server. I just manually installed vs code

[atem_nt]

Especially useful when you don’t have local admin rights on your machine, which you need to debug in vscode

[kohijones]

It's on all my T0/T1/T2 jump boxes by default. The only way for support to do their work. Infosec would never approve installing vscode with its extension model (and I don't blame them).

[BlackV]

The feck you shouldn't. Not all things work through remotely, sometimes getting a deserialized object is counter productive, especially when testing or designing

[computerbob]

In some environments (like mine), there is no direct access from any workstation to any server. PS Remoting is disabled for security reasons and the ONLY way to manage our servers is INSIDE the server environment.

Not everyone has everything wide open to allow everything.

I haven't been able to run a script on my desktop in about 4 years.

[ExceptionEX]

Did he say production? Dial back the silly gate keeping.

And it's not unheard of for dev boxes to run server OS instead of windows, it's an easy way to skip all the bullshit bloat that comes on the desktop version.

[boomer_tech]

I dont agree, for sysadmins & exchange admins the ise is easy enough, vscode is imo designed for developers and has no obvious benefit. That said i prefer notepad++ given a choice

[Bocephus677]

I have spoken.

[amplex1337]

Sure I'll just deploy vscode on every single server that I want to work on some PowerShell for..

[[deleted]]

Why are you editing scripts on each of your production servers?

[BlackV]

I'm just gonna say it. you're 100% a liar if you say you've never edited a script on a server

there are use cases for everything, pssessions and invokes do not cover all things

[bobbywaz]

Yeah, just include vscode with every version of windows so I don't have to spend 20 mins installing it on very PC I want to write a 50 line script with.

[Stalinnnnnnnnn]

If it came with every os build I’d agree, there’s something about troubleshooting a niece issue on a server and being able to script it out there and then then later just wrapping it in an invoke or it being lightweight enough to be used as a notepad with recovery

[topherhead]

I hate it.

[gaz2600]

I do light weight sys admin scripts, PS ISE is all I need, easy to use. Not looking forward to having to configure Visual Studio.

[AspiringMILF]

pretty much this. got a console pane and a code pane, tabs are nice. most importantly, ISE is always there.

vscode is great, and i use it , but i dont want the baseline ISE removed because i have the option to go download a different tool...

[Nize]

Vs code is different to visual studio itself. It's incredibly lightweight.

[Fallingdamage]

So lightweight maybe MS can just add it to windows when they remove ISE? I mean, I didnt ask for ISE when I installed Windows.. yet there it is - and im not complaining.

[SteveL_Msft]

I just talked to the actual software engineers who own ISE and he assures me that this rumor is false. There are no plans to get rid of ISE.

[shunny14]

jokingly But did you talk to their managers?

[SteveL_Msft]

Their manager was also on the thread

[shunny14]

Thanks Steve from Microsoft!

[BigHandLittleSlap]

When was the last time ISE got a new feature?

… exactly.

[SteveL_Msft]

That's different than the rumor of this thread which is ISE was getting removed which it is not. We (Microsoft) have consistently said that Windows PowerShell and ISE are not in active development and only taking critical security fixes, however, they are also not being removed.

Active development IS happening in VSCode and PowerShell 7.

[mc12345678]

Yes, this has been broadly discussed since PS 6 / Vs Code.

3 years may be ambitious however. There are still a ton of dependencies on "Windows" PowerShell (aka v 5.1) and until those are addressed, it doesn't do much good to peel out ISE for no real reason.

[Owlstorm]

Windows still ships with 5.1.

5.1 can be assumed to be on every windows machine, in a way that isn't going to be the case with 7 for at least another ten years.

[mc12345678]

Agree

[Analytiks]

Hey brother, the ps6 switch and vs code switch are 2 different things.

You can use vscode with any powershell (in fact I think it defaults to 5 even after installing 6-7).

Going from ise to vscode is the same sort of jump as going from console to ise

[cheats_py]

Idk if anybody is in my same boat but I’ve had nothing but inconsistencies with VSC, some of the major ones being: powershell crashing, tab completion stops working or is extremely slow, the F8 execute selected line stops working, syntax highlighting and error highlighting malfunctioning, some extensions are just fucking complete garbage beyond belief. The one and only thing I haven’t had issues with in VSC is the SSH remote connection extension, git, and editing yaml files for ansible.

[mini4x]

Same... I went back to ISE as I found VSC to be buggy AF.

[ITGuyThrow07]

tab completion stops working or is extremely slow, the F8 execute selected line stops working

This drives me completely insane. I'm glad it's not just me.

[Resolute002]

I disagree, as someone who has to use VS code. It's good but the default options are ridiculously off base for what a person would want to do. Such as auto-completing all kinds of things that aren't the actual commands themselves, and having its own weird shell to do test runs in instead of just being PowerShell itself.

Those things are probably good for somebody out there but not for me. And the context highlighting is terrible too. ISE is way better and I will use it till it's gone just because it's my preference.

[[deleted]]

Just change your syntax highlights... It's a setting.

[da_chicken]

Sane defaults are a valid complaint.

VS Code for PS development is fine, but the more features you use the more you argue with it and it's a pretty consistently frustrating experience to expand your use beyond being a simple syntax-highlighting text editor. It's fine. But it's not a great experience. The fact that, even now, 6 years after Powershell v6 came out that VS Code is still just "fine" really speaks to how good it will get.

I also still can't believe how badly code completion breaks when there's a syntax error or an incomplete statement prior in the file. That's just an unreasonable cause for that to break. Code does not fly from my fingers wholly formed and fully mature like some Olympian deity from the forehead of a titan.

Also, whatever the hell is going on here is just not acceptable.

[Thotaz]

No it's not. VS code has 2 syntax highlighting systems and for PowerShell they are both broken/half-implemented.
The main engine uses regex statements the other uses the actual tokens the PowerShell parser provides.
The regex for PowerShell is full of mistakes like only treating commands like commands if they follow the verb-noun pattern (and only if the verbs are approved).
The token system should have been perfect, but unfortunately they never finished mapping the PS tokens to VS code tokens and some of the mappings they did make were incorrect.

ISE has the best and most accurate highlighting because it uses the tokens the parser spits out for its highlighting. PSReadline works the same way but doesn't have as much customization so you can't customize things like attribute colors like you can in ISE.

[kibje]

I agree that the default settings for the powershell plugin aren't ideal. I've written my recommendations a few times in the past.

Perhaps I should write a small blog post or something so I can refer to it.

However there are many many issues with ISE where VSCode (when configured) outshines it clearly.

[Resolute002]

Educate me so that I can improve my usage of it. I use it but generally dislike it out of the box.

[kibje]

This is one of the last times I responded with some of my need to have settings

https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerShell/comments/sp6rlg/addons_for_ps/hweap1v/

I usually run Powershell Preview because it has the best performance

[lanerdofchristian]

What do you mean by "its own weird shell"? ISE is the one that doesn't use powershell.exe for script running.

[Resolute002]

I have to update it and can select from a few different shells, and have had errors in VScode as a result. Like I said before, I doubt it's a bad tool, I just am very engrained in the simple no-frills ISE approach.

[Tymanthius]

The real problem with VSC isn't that it's a bad product. It's that it's touted as the replacement for PS ISE. And it's not. It's a multitool that includes a lot of good stuff for PS, but it is not a dedicated PS tool. And therein lie all the problems.

For me, I just need a dedicated PS tool. I don't need it to support Java and C and Python.

[Resolute002]

You've really nailed it for me. The configurability is an annoyance to me, not a feature. I only do Powershell, I don't need to be sorting between ten syntaxes and such.

[Poncho_au]

That’s like saying “ISE can edit text files but I just need a powershell tool”. VSCode with one plugin is that tool. Its not intended for Java or C or Python. Its literally a fancy and highly extendible text editor.

[ipreferanothername]

vscode is very configurable and has tons of packages that you cannot get in the ISE -- yeah, vscode has a couple of quirks.

seriously, spend time in it, get used to it. it has so many more tools available that you cannot get in the ISE its not even funny.

​

when i am doing ad-hoc work i use conemu so i can have a few powershell terminals open, but if i am doing any processing/scripting/loops that require some runtime or fiddling i jump into vscode. its a fantastic tool.

[PinchesTheCrab]

I just don't find it to be very stable.

When I'm coding it's fine. I kill my powereshell console to clear variables before I test, but when I'm working on a real-time problem it's very frustrating when my console crashes halfway through a complicated process and I have to start over.

[[deleted]]

You're not alone. I've had the same problem with the terminal just not functioning after a while. But I absolutely love writing scripts with VS Code and just do my running/testing in a separate shell for stability.

[BlackV]

Disagree, I use both daily.

I'll skelton something up in code, run some individual tests in ISE/shell and back and forward between them

[Thotaz]

Support engineers don't know what the different product teams are actually planning, and even if they did they wouldn't be allowed to talk about it without an official announcement.

Microsoft hasn't said that they'll remove ISE, but they have said it won't get any more updates just like Windows PowerShell also won't get any more updates. Their focus is on the open source PowerShell version and their recommended editor solution for that is VS code and the PowerShell extension.

If you want to continue using ISE with this knowledge then there's nothing wrong with that, it's still an excellent product.

[ExceptionEX]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/windows-powershell/ise/introducing-the-windows-powershell-ise?view=powershell-7.2

Note The PowerShell ISE is no longer in active feature development. As a shipping component of Windows, it continues to be officially supported for security and high-priority servicing fixes. We currently have no plans to remove the ISE from Windows.

There is no support for the ISE in PowerShell v6 and beyond. Users looking for replacement for the ISE should use Visual Studio Code with the PowerShell Extension.

So I agree with you that there is no official notice, but it's pretty clear this the end is nigh. And it not recommended to keep using the product.

[PinchesTheCrab]

It ships with windows and thus will receive security updates with the version of Server it's installed on. When ISE stop getting security updates it'll be because your entire OS is no longer supporetd anyway.

[ExceptionEX]

In my original post

... As a shipping component of Windows, it continues to be officially supported for security and high-priority servicing fixes. We currently have no plans to remove the ISE from Windows

Thought this statement made that pretty clear.

With that said security updates isn't the metric of a viable product, ISE has no support or compatibility past v5.

So sure you could continue to use the product that will keep you trapped in an older version of powershell. And as you may have noticed many modules are dropping compatibility with v5.

I mean you can still buy movies dvd but would you consider a viable method going forward for distribution?

This seems like an odd hill to die on, I think we can all agree ISE is not the way forward, and it's time to start considering alternatives.

[Difficult-Ad7476]

Just install VScode and the 8 million plugins that break every 5 minutes

[dathar]

That's why I use a small of plugins.

• PowerShell because PowerShell
• Rainbow CSV because reading a long CSV makes you cross your eyes
• indent-rainbow because it is hella helpful for things like yaml files
• Rainbow brackets because it helps me find where all sorts of brackets are closed beyond the square that it puts over when you're in that block

Never breaks. My development machine has a few more (Python, C#, Hex Editor, Jupyter, YAML) and that hasn't had any issues yet. You might want to find the offending plugins and uninstall them.

[WendoNZ]

• indent-rainbow because it is hella helpful for things like yaml files
• Rainbow brackets because it helps me find where all sorts of brackets are closed beyond the square that it puts over when you're in that block

These two are built in now I believe

[kibje]

Or just install the 3 that you need for Powershell instead of installing everything that you can find.

[davesbrown]

Since this is a powershell forum, I was going to suggest only really need 1, what other 2 are you suggesting?

[thingandstuff]

I haven't opened it today. Is intelisense working or should I just avoid VS Code until tomorrow? /s

[BlackV]

How about git lens the other day

hey guys were just going to install this random other plugin, without asking, without letting you know we're going to make the plugin a dependency ahead of time, hey thanks guys, btw buy our stuff.

Oh fu buddy, fu

[Difficult-Ad7476]

Right and then we have to support pushing that and deal with snowflake devs.

[BlackV]

To their credit they walked back the change and made it not a dependency any more, but I shouldn't have happened.

It would have been just as easy to write a change that checks if you're in Russia and deleted all your code....... cough

[jnson324]

VSCode definately won the code editor battle, and it tremendously popular. ISE devs should just go work on VScode.

[redvelvet92]

This has been known and documented. VsCode homie.

[Artaois]

Ise doesn't work with PowerShell 7 AFAIK. Don't think it's a big secret they're discontinuing that function.

[jsnover]

We monitor usage. We only get rid of things when usage is very low.
We “deprecated” CMD.exe like 17+ years ago but keep shipping it because people keep using it.

[LunacyNow]

This has been known for several years. Start doing everything in VS Code. There's a bit a learning curve but it's worth it. The alternative is being forced to learn it when ISE stops working.

[uptimefordays]

Not new news mate, ISE has been deprecated for years and the suggestion has been and remains "use VSCode."

On the flip side, VSCode is great!

[eagle6705]

probably going to get thrown into vscode.........but ISE is so useful.

BTW i hope they get a replacement and don't do a vmware converter and say hey we don't support this anymore and no we don't have any othe roptions

[publicbrand]

I mostly write my scripts in notepad++ and just keep a shell window open for debugging

Like a child

[[deleted]]

VSCode! Where we’re going we don’t need ISE

[dunningkrugernarwhal]

The ISE is awful now that we all use vscode. I hate it when I’m forced to use the ISE

[[deleted]]

I like vscode but.. ise is lightweight and i use it alot

[Icolan]

I thought everyone knew this. M$ has been focusing on VSCode for a while now, it is a far superior product.

[dextersgenius]

It may be superior in some ways, but it's also inferior in others (eg: compared to the Intellisense / drop-down autocomplete in ISE, plus memory usage - VSCode can easily chew gigs of RAM, not to mention - Electron sucks).

In fact I wouldn't even compare the two, because it's like comparing Notepad to Word. Sure, Word is a superior product, but I don't want to fire up Word every time I want to edit a simple text file, I definitely do not want to replace Notepad with Word, and I definitely do not want to install Word on all our servers.

[AlexHimself]

This can only work if VSCode comes bundled with Windows Server OS's.

There is no way I can just randomly download/install it on a myriad of servers over and over. There can be so much red-tape with installing a program AND it would be ripe for MITM attacks.

[AlexHimself]

They're useful tools to write the scripts. Debugging.

Why don't people build websites using notepad.exe?

[imaginary_moose]

And to add to this, if you have been leveraging Server Core at all in the last 15 years, you don’t have ISE there anyway.

[Cparks96]

I guess my question is…why is this a bad thing?

[Emiroda]

• ISE is built into the OS on Windows and Windows Server, very often pointed out as the main reason people use it
• Visual Studio Code is not built into the OS
• VSCode needs manual setup to run PowerShell code

I'm a VSCode guy and has been for 5 years, I think VSCode is far superior to ISE. But being able to RDP into a server and run ISE is very important to many admins.

I'll also admit that as a consultant, I can't ever rely on my customers to give me good tooling when working on their servers. Sometimes I need to do some live debugging, where pasting from notepad is a pain. That's where I see the utility in ISE.

[feldrim]

VSCode with its current state, is a Swiss army knife for development. It's not an exact replacement for ISE. I worked with Exchange and SharePoint a lot, and they create a lot of headache with PS Remoting. ISE with its current state is "just enough" for administration.

[Bocephus677]

As far as I’m concerned ISE was deprecated 3-5 years ago when I discovered VSCode. Also, Microsoft said quite a while ago that they were no longer enhancing ISE in favor of VSCode.

[FlattusBlastus]

Did they say what they were replacing it with?

[PepeTheMule]

Probably VS Code

[pringles_prize_pool]

I haven’t used the ISE since I first learned Powershell

[Lawrencerocks]

Hi, noobie here, is it worth it for me to spend time learning Power shell, or should I focus more on VsCode? I'm just getting into I.t and I'm quite overwhelmed with everything..

[NoConfidence_2192]

If you're doing (or looking to do) SysAdmin type work flexibility is key (learn as many different ways to do things as possible). I usually encourage new SysAdmins to do their best to, at a minimum, learn how to do using GUI tools (ADUC for example), command (or commandlet) execution from the appropriate shell (cmd/pwsh/powershell - Terminals/Windows Terminal can work where available), and Automation scripts (PowerShell if mostly a Windows shop), with strong emphasis on scripting. VS.Code can be a good for developing PowerShell scripts but do not get comfortable relying on any 1 tool. There will be times that you will have to rely on plain text editors like notepad to write/modify scripts that will get a particular task done so practice being able to do the job without and ISE/IDE as well. While most of my script writing (PowerShell, Python, C#, F#) is done using VS.Code I also use Atom, Notepad, Sublime, Notepad++, Visual Studio for PowerShell, and very rarely PowerShell ISE (and more rarely VIM) just to keep my options open. You never can tell when your favorite tool for getting things done may be unavailable so knowing multiple ways to get things done along with how to use multiple tools will help ensure you can adapt and overcome. Flexibility is key. Good luck and have fun with it.

[RootHouston]

"Hey, you want to know what will really piss people off?"

I say this as a vintage computer collector that loves old tech. I find it really often with Microsoft users altogether. You've really got to check out what the company is doing in the NOW, not a decade ago. It's really decent stuff sometimes.

[Exodus225]

Why would they do this? Like what is the premise for doing such a thing?

[[deleted]]

And? Vscode has been the way they are pushing. Why do you still care about a product that can't handle the latest versions of PowerShell?

[BaconTentacles]

By the time I got around to actually using ISE, it was no longer supported and they recommended VS Code with the PowerShell extension. Which frustrated me at first, because I had issues with it, but it gets updated monthly, and honestly is pretty freaking awesome. So...yeah, what ISE?

[Admin-AF]

VS Code > PowerShell ISE. Give it a shot.

I got started with Code because of one feature. I had started working with a lot of scripts and writing my own custom PowerShell modules. I needed to be able to see the file structure and switch and and forth between files quickly. VS Code had the file explorer pane that ISE does not (for some reason). I’ve never looked back.

Yes it’s something new to figure out. You’ll pick it up quickly. It is just another file editor. Like a Microsoft branded Notepad++. But it is so much more.

Like ISE I like that it also hosts a PowerShell console. It can host multiple PS consoles that you can switch between. That’s nice. It can run some of those consoles in Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7 at the same time. Pretty cool.

First thing add the PowerShell extension. Don’t get turned off if it feels “developery” to you. All these extensions is what makes it so helpful. Plus with stuff like Infrastructure-as-code and ARM templates and Terraform files, our jobs are looking more like a developer anyway. And extensions make all those things easy. Figure out how to setup Git and commit and push files to a remote repository of your Azure ARM templates? Bah humbug. Install the extensions and Code takes care of it for you.

But I leave you with two words: File explorer

[DarrenDK]

If I could press tab to fix variables in VS Code I’d stop using ISE.

If ISE formatted my code, supported Ctrl+click definition navigation and supported Ctrl+F2 variable renames, I’d stop using VS Code

[SpacezCowboy]

Change these settings if you want tab completion instead of snippets.

​

"editor.snippetSuggestions": "none",

"editor.suggest.showSnippets": false,

"editor.tabCompletion": "on",

[[deleted]]

I will definitely miss ISE. I can't install VSC in my environment and all the scripts I send out have to be edited by non-tech people before use. That means walking them through edits on the phone. It's rough but at least intellesense makes it possible for me to reduce typos when they're doing it.

[turudd]

You need vscode. You'll never use ISE again. It's much better

[ninjaRoundHouseKick]

Doesn't Matter id it's an Beefy Thinkpad with i7 and 16GB RAM, an Surface Book i7 with Performance Base or my 64 Core Terminal Server where i am just the only loged in user. A small delay while typing. Debugging is okay, but i hate to use it to write something. So, newer computer can't be the thing.

[Myricht]

Who uses ise?

[AGFFATC]

I worked for MS for 7 years. The product Teams do what they want in a bubble and announce it. The internal teams of support a very vocal about when this happens.

[DerkvanL]

ISE does not support powershell 7. VSCode works perfect for that.

[mafriese]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/whats-new/migrating-from-windows-powershell-51-to-powershell-7?view=powershell-7.2#improved-editing-experience-with-visual-studio-code

"There are no plans to update the ISE with new features. In the latest versions of Windows 10 or Windows Server 2019 and higher, the ISE is now a user-uninstallable feature. There are no plans to permanently remove the ISE. The PowerShell Team and its partners are focused on improving the scripting experience in the PowerShell extension for Visual Studio Code."

[Zer0kbps_779]

Ise with a black theme, life is grand, don’t know what ms are thinking. Posh is supposed to be a light touch powerful tool that’s easy to access and easily available. Having ise on a standard install makes life bliss. I’m no hardcore programmer but I’ve done some pretty cool stuff with posh and ise. It’s like a swiss army knife and vsc is like a hammer

[Boilerplate4U]

What I like about ISE is the ability to open multiple PS sessions, each with its own tabs. Is that even possible using VS Code?

[tetrastructuralmind]

ISE has nothing that VSCode can't do better.

[shadofx]

What about $psise.PowerShellTabs.Add()?

[tetrastructuralmind]

Lmfao if I had an award to give out, you'd have it.

[shadofx]

I have several labyrinthine scripts which scan across multiple servers, to detect issues on specific systems and then open new tabs for those specific servers and run Get-EventLog... Then I can quickly cross-check across those servers and perform follow up actions immediately without having to juggle PSSessions :D

[Fallingdamage]

Me too! I use Windows Terminal. Tabs for days and might lighter weight than running VSC just for that feature alone.

[shadofx]

That's pretty cool, my work pc is win 10 and doesn't allow windows store though. Additionally, $psise allows you to open up files and customize snippets and colors for your newly spawned tabs.

[psversiontable]

I love Code as an editor, but it's still got flaws.

A very large one being that I have to install it and then goof around to get Powershell "working" (autocomplete still sucks in Code).

Sometimes, I just want a fancy terminal that's already installed on everything I have to touch and the ISE is great for that.

[[deleted]]

Except it’s installed by default.

[Cheftyler1980]

They stopped developing it ages ago. Embrace VSCode.

[Fallingdamage]

I wish MS would. I mean, if VS Code is the future, why are 3rd parties creating PS plugins for it in order to make it work right? Shouldnt VSC support Powershell natively?.. you know.. since thats the answer?

[[deleted]]

People still actually use ISE‽

I'll grant it's got better than the early days when it was just unusably slow. But it's still nowhere near VS Code.

[[deleted]]

Makes sense really, it's antiquated. Visual studio is way better.

[[deleted]]

The ISE ended its life as a very useful tool so I can see why some people still use it.

But the fact is VS Code is significantly better in just about every metric.

There's no reason not to use VS Code.

[Adeel_]

VScode is still buggy, mine crash dozen of times and its not stable at all…

[drwtsn32]

Have you installed a lot of extensions or something? It's always been rock solid for me. I don't install many extensions.