Here is a list of important PowerShell variables: $pshome is the path to the place where PowerShell lives. $home is the path to your personal profile folder. And $PSVersionTable returns the PowerShell version and the versions of important subcomponents:
PS> $pshome
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0
PS> $HOME
C:\Users\tweltner
PS> $PSVersionTable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 5.1.14393.0
PSEdition Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion 10.0.14393.0
CLRVersion 4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion 3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
$profile is the path to your personal autostart script that gets loaded automatically whenever your current PowerShell hosts starts (provided the file exists). $profile.CurrentUserAllHosts is the profile script that is loaded with any host. And $env:PSModulePath lists the folders where PowerShell modules can be stored that are auto-discoverable for PowerShell:
PS> $profile C:\Users\tweltner\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1 PS> $profile.CurrentUserAllHosts C:\Users\tweltner\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\profile.ps1 PS> $env:PSModulePath -split ';' C:\Users\tweltner\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules PS>
