Adding modules into PowerShell 3.0 ISE for services running on other machines

In my last blog I talked a little about the new Commands menu within the PowerShell 3.0 ISE, the ability to view all the cmdlets relating to an individual module, and then use it to build a command.

It's a great feature and of course there are a lot of modules out there for different applications and services. As you install new roles and features that use their own set of modules the installer adds those modules into the list, so by default the PowerShell ISE modules list contains all the modules relevant to the local installation.

But what if you want to write your script and insert cmdlets into it on a machine that doesn't have those roles or features installed? You could install the relevant management pack, but that seems somewhat overkill to me.

The other option is to simply copy the relevant files from a machine that already has them.

All of the module files installed on a machine can be found in :

c:\windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\

with an individual folder for each module installed. These obviously get loaded when PowerShell ISE loads.

To make these available on another machine, for instance making the DNS Server module show up on your desktop machine, simply copy the relevant folder(s) (in this case DnsServer) from a server that it's installed on, into the modules folder on your target machine (your desktop).

The next time you load the PowerShell ISE you'll find the module and its list of cmdlets listed and available for use. This way on one machine you can have all your required modules, be they SQL Server, Exchange Server, Active Directory, DNS Server etc on a single machine.

Update:

Just to avoid confusion, my intention when finding this method was simply to allow me to write the code on my local machine, NOT to allow me to execute the cmdlets locally. Using the -Computer parameter to specify the machine to run the command against won't work, since your local machine is missing the required dll's. That said, if you've established a connection to the remote server, eg using Enter-PSSession, then the cmdlets generated on your local machine can be run since you're using the dll's on the remote machine not the local ones.