PowerShell "Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt"

This function will enter the "Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt" mode for the Visual Studio version matching the $DisplayNameMatch.

NOTES

• Depends upon VSWHERE.exe. Requires that at the very least Visual Studio 2017 is installed or greater. Can be used to enter the developer powershell for lower versions as long as VSWHERE.EXE is found. About VSWHERE.EXE
• VSWhere can also be installed from here, but you will still need an install of Visual Studio.
• If run multiple times, a warning will be written out. This warning can be ignored.
• If multiple instances are found matching, then the latest version will be used.

Examples:

Installs the latest version of the module from the Powershell Gallery

Install-Module -Name EnterDeveloperPowerShell -Force

Gets the latest Visual Studio Installed and enters the developer mode for that version

Import-Module EnterDeveloperPowerShell
Enter-VisualStudioDeveloperShell # This is the same as passing in latest
dir env:

Gets the latest Visual Studio version installed, and enters the developer command prompt for that version

Import-Module EnterDeveloperPowerShell
Enter-VisualStudioDeveloperShell -DisplayNameMatch "latest"
dir env:

Gets the Visual Studio 2015 if Installed and enters the developer mode for that version. If not installed, an exception will be thrown

Import-Module EnterDeveloperPowerShell
Enter-VisualStudioDeveloperShell -DisplayNameMatch "2015"
dir env:

Shows an example getting the path using just version

Import-Module EnterDeveloperPowerShell
Enter-VisualStudioDeveloperShell -DisplayNameMatch "2019"
dir env:

Shows an example that could return multiple instaled versions, when this happens the newest version is selected.

Import-Module EnterDeveloperPowerShell
Enter-VisualStudioDeveloperShell -DisplayNameMatch "2015|2017|2019"
dir env:

Shows an example that installs the module if not installed, and enters developer mode with the latest installed Visual Studio.

$moduleName = "EnterDeveloperPowerShell"

$module = Get-InstalledModule $moduleName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if (-not $module) {
    Write-Host "Installing module: $moduleName"
    Install-Module -Name $moduleName -Force
}

Import-Module $moduleName
Enter-VisualStudioDeveloperShell

dir env:

Possible Exceptions

• VSWHERE.exe is not found
• No instances are found for the $DisplayNameMatch supplied
• VsDevCmd.bat could not be found in the install
• The invocation of VsDevCmd.bat fails

PowerShell Gallery Module

Start Developer Command Prompt