Question

I have a network with several computers on it, and I’d like to put all my PowerShell modules in a network share so I can easily access them from any computer. This works for script modules, however binary modules don’t seem to work.

The Import-Module statement can execute just fine without errors, however when you use Get-Module, it will show that the newly imported binary module is not exporting any Cmdlets. If I copy the module to a local directory on my computer, it all works as expected.

Is there a way to import binary modules from a network location?

Answer 1

The easiest way I found to load PowerShell modules was to add a configuration file to the $PSHOME directory.

I created a text file at $PSHOME\powershell.exe.config and put the following in the file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
    <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
        <supportedRuntime version="v4.0.30319"/>
        <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727"/>
    </startup>
    <runtime>
        <loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/>
    </runtime>
</configuration>

This does two things:

1. Uses supportedRuntime to ensure that PowerShell runs under .NET 4.0 rather than .NET 3.5. This is important because .NET 4 has different security policies that are easier to understand and configure.
2. Uses loadFromRemoteSources (only available in .NET 4+) to enable loading DLLs from remote locations such as a network file share.