To remove old or unused PowerShell modules from your Windows computer, you can follow these straightforward steps. These actions may help to resolve issues like slow startup times in PowerShell or conflicts between different modules.<\/p>\n
First, to see which third-party PowerShell modules are installed, you can use the following command:<\/p>\n
Get-InstalledModule<\/code><\/pre>\nThis command shows all third-party modules registered via the Install-Module<\/code> cmdlet. For instance, if all are installed through the PSGallery repository, they will be listed here.<\/p>\nUninstalling a Module<\/h3>\n
To remove a specific module, use the Uninstall-Module<\/code> command followed by the module name. For example:<\/p>\nUninstall-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate<\/code><\/pre>\nIf multiple versions of the module exist, this command will remove the most recent version or will fail if multiple versions are detected. To view all installed versions of a module, use:<\/p>\n
Get-Module pswindowsupdate -ListAvailable<\/code><\/pre>\nTo uninstall a particular version, you can specify it like this:<\/p>\n
Uninstall-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate -RequiredVersion 2.2.1.4 -Verbose<\/code><\/pre>\nIf you want to keep only the latest version of a module, you can run:<\/p>\n
$moduleName = "PSWindowsUpdate"$versions = Get-InstalledModule -Name $moduleName -AllVersions | Sort-Object Version -Descending$versions | Select-Object -Skip 1 | ForEach-Object { Uninstall-Module -Name $moduleName -RequiredVersion $_.Version -Force }<\/code><\/pre>\nTo remove all versions of a module, the command is:<\/p>\n
Uninstall-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate -AllVersions<\/code><\/pre>\nUninstalling on a Remote Computer<\/h3>\n
You can also uninstall a module from a remote machine using Invoke-Command<\/code>:<\/p>\nInvoke-Command -ComputerName mun-dc01 -ScriptBlock {Uninstall-Module PSWindowsUpdate -RequiredVersion 2.2.1.2 -Force -Verbose}<\/code><\/pre>\nHandling Errors During Uninstallation<\/h3>\n
Sometimes, you might encounter an error that indicates the module is in use, such as:<\/p>\n
WARNING: The version '2.2.1.4' of module 'PSWindowsUpdate' is currently in use. Retry the operation after closing the applications.<\/code><\/pre>\nTo resolve this, you need to close the PowerShell session where the module is loaded. You can list currently loaded modules with:<\/p>\n
Get-Module<\/code><\/pre>\nTo unload a module from memory without exiting the console, use:<\/p>\n
Remove-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate<\/code><\/pre>\nAfter this, try removing the module again with:<\/p>\n
Uninstall-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate -Force<\/code><\/pre>\nBypassing Automatic Module Loading<\/h3>\n
If a module loads automatically at the start of a PowerShell session, you can bypass this by launching PowerShell with the -NoProfile<\/code> option:<\/p>\nPowershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "Uninstall-Module ImportExcel"<\/code><\/pre>\nViewing All Available Modules<\/h3>\n
To check all modules on your computer, including those manually installed, run:<\/p>\n
Get-Module -ListAvailable | Select-Object Name, Version, Path<\/code><\/pre>\nThis will show you where the module files are located. Standard paths for installed modules include:<\/p>\n
C:Users%username%DocumentsWindowsPowerShellModulesC:Program FilesWindowsPowerShellModulesC:Windowssystem32WindowsPowerShellv1.0Modules<\/code><\/pre>\nFor PowerShell Core 7.x, you\u2019ll have additional paths:<\/p>\n
C:Program FilesPowerShellModules<\/code><\/pre>\nCleaning Up Residual Files<\/h3>\n
Even after uninstalling a module, some files may remain. You can manually delete these leftover files. A simple PowerShell script can do this:<\/p>\n
$Module = Get-Module ImportExcel -ListAvailableUninstall-Module $Module.Name -VerboseRemove-Item $Module.ModuleBase -Recurse -Force<\/code><\/pre>\nWith these steps, you should be able to effectively manage and remove any old or unused PowerShell modules from your system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To remove old or unused PowerShell modules from your Windows computer, you can follow these straightforward steps. These actions may help to resolve issues like slow startup times in PowerShell or conflicts between different modules. Listing Installed Modules First, to see which third-party PowerShell modules are installed, you can use the following command: Get-InstalledModule This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-powershell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheapwindowsvps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}