A collection of PSScriptAnalyzer rules to highlight potential PowerShell 7 compatibility issues when migrating from PowerShell 5.1

This module was featured in Shell Renovations: Refactoring Your PowerShell Empire for V7 talk at PSConfEU 2025

Usage

git clone https://github.com/janestreet/PS7CompatibilityRules.git
Invoke-ScriptAnalyzer -Path '<your_code_path>' -Recurse -CustomRulePath .\PS7CompatibilityRules\*.psm1

Note

If instead of using git clone you've downloaded a zip file of this repo, you might need to run Get-ChildItem .\PS7CompatibilityRules | Unblock-File

Included Rules

Rule	Description
AvoidDeprecatedCommands	Flag commands that are listed on Microsoft's website as incompatible with PS7
AvoidDeprecatedTypes	Flag references to deprecated types that are incompatible with PS7
AvoidGetSetAccessControl	Flag GetAccessControl() or SetAccessControl() calls
CommandRecommendations	Recommendations for specific commands that have different behavior in PS7
NoHtmlParsing	Flag code that relies on HTML parsing done in web cmdlets
SelectObjectMustSpecifyProperty	Select-Object ExcludeProperty is effective only when the command also includes a Property parameter
EnsureProperUseOfDotNetMethods	Flag some .NET method calls that have different behavior in PS7/.NET Core

Example

Let's examine Demo.ps1 that has compatibility issues:

$webClient = [System.Net.WebClient]::new()
$webClient.DownloadString("https://example.com") | Out-File -FilePath "C:\temp\example.txt"

$acl = Get-Acl -Path "C:\temp\example.txt"
$rule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("Everyone", "ReadAndExecute", "Allow")
$acl.AddAccessRule($rule)
$acl.SetAccessControl("C:\temp\example.txt")

Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem | Select-Object Caption, Version | Format-Table -AutoSize

'One,Two;Three Four'.Split(' ,;') | foreach { "Processing: $_" }

Rules will report these findings:

> Invoke-ScriptAnalyzer -Path .\Demo.ps1 -CustomRulePath .\PS7CompatibilityRules\*.psm1

RuleName                            Severity     ScriptName Line  Message
--------                            --------     ---------- ----  -------
AvoidDeprecatedCommands             Error        Demo.ps1   9     The command Get-WmiObject or one of its parameters or
                                                                  parameter values is not compatible with both PS5 and PS7.
                                                                  Consider using a different command.
AvoidDeprecatedTypes                Error        Demo.ps1   1     Violation: Use System.Net.Http.HttpClient &
                                                                  System.Net.Http.HttpClientHandler to ensure compatibility
                                                                  with PS7 and future versions
AvoidGetSetAccessControl            Error        Demo.ps1   7     In PS7, GetAccessControl and SetAccessControl are not
                                                                  available. Please use Get-Acl and Set-Acl
CommandRecommendations              Information  Demo.ps1   2     Recommendation: Default encoding for "Out-File" has changed
                                                                  from unicode to UTF-8NoBOM. Specify "-Encoding Unicode" to
                                                                  ensure consistent behavior between PS versions.
EnsureProperUseOfDotNetMethods      Warning      Demo.ps1   11    Recommendation: The Split method behaves differently
                                                                  between PS5 and PS7 due to .NET changes. Use -split or
                                                                  -csplit with regex instead.

Using these rules in Visual Studio Code

1. In your workspace create a PSScriptAnalyzer settings file (.vscode\PSScriptAnalyzerSettings.psd1)

   @{
       CustomRulePath = @(
           '<path_to>\PS7CompatibilityRules\*.psm1'
       )
   }

2. Create or edit your workspace's settings file (.vscode\settings.json) to include these settings

   {
       "powershell.scriptAnalysis.settingsPath": ".vscode\\PSScriptAnalyzerSettings.psd1",
       "powershell.scriptAnalysis.enable": true
   }

Rule violations should now be highlighted as you're editing code.

For more details, see

• Settings Support in ScriptAnalyzer
• Custom rules
• Using custom rules in Visual Studio Code