Open PowerShell in Windows 11 & 10 (and What ISE Was)

To open PowerShell in Windows 11 or Windows 10, press the Windows key, type PowerShell, and press Enter — that works on both versions, every edition, no admin rights required just to launch it. The part that trips people up isn't the launch itself, though. It's that a shortcut which worked for years — right-clicking the Start button — quietly stopped showing "Windows PowerShell" on current Windows 11 builds. It shows Windows Terminal instead, and Terminal is now the window PowerShell actually runs inside by default, not a separate app sitting next to it.

Jake found this out the hard way. A customer brought in a laptop that wouldn't detect its second monitor, and Jake needed a PowerShell command to check the display drivers. He right-clicked the Start button like he always had, PowerShell wasn't there, and for a solid two minutes he assumed it had been uninstalled somehow. He called Ethan, half-convinced the customer's laptop was broken. "It's not gone," Ethan told him, "Microsoft just renamed the door. Same room behind it."

Every method below actually works today, on a real 2026 install of Windows 11 or Windows 10 — not the Windows 10 that existed when this guide first went up. We'll cover the fast ways, the reliable fallback when the fast way is grayed out, admin mode, running it from inside cmd, and the PowerShell-vs-ISE question this post originally set out to answer, which is still worth untangling because Microsoft has quietly changed the recommendation since.

None of the methods below need anything installed or downloaded. PowerShell has shipped inside every copy of Windows for well over a decade, so if it's running Windows 11 or Windows 10 at all, it already has PowerShell sitting on it — the only question is which door you use to get to it.

Opening PowerShell in Windows 11

Windows 11 gives you four practical routes in. They all land you in the same place; the difference is speed and where you're starting from.

Method 1: Start search (the one to actually use)

Press the Windows key on your keyboard — the one with the four-pane logo, usually between Ctrl and Alt on the bottom-left of the keyboard. That opens the Start menu with a search box already focused, no clicking required. Type powershell. Windows 11's search matches as you type, so you'll usually see "Windows PowerShell" as the top result after three or four letters. Press Enter, or click it with your mouse.

This is the version of the instructions worth memorizing, because unlike the other three methods below, it hasn't changed in years and Microsoft has no obvious reason to move it.

Method 2: Right-click Start (the UI trap)

This used to be the fastest method: right-click the Start button (or press Win + X), and pick "Windows PowerShell" from the list that pops up. On current Windows 11 builds, that entry is gone. The same menu now offers Terminal and Terminal (Admin) instead.

If you specifically need the old-style console window instead of Terminal's tabbed interface, Start search (Method 1) still gives you the option to open "Windows PowerShell" as a standalone console on most current builds — it just won't be sitting in the right-click menu anymore.

Jake wasn't thrilled with that explanation. "So the shortcut I taught myself is just wrong now, forever?" Ethan's take is blunter than most guides will say out loud: "Yeah, kind of. Microsoft moves this stuff without asking either of us. The fix isn't memorizing a menu position, it's memorizing the search box instead — that one's stayed put longer than almost anything else in Windows."

Method 3: File Explorer's address bar

This one rarely makes it into guides, and it's genuinely useful: open the folder you want to work in, click into File Explorer's address bar (the strip at the top showing the folder path), type powershell, and press Enter. A PowerShell window opens already pointed at that exact folder — no cd command needed to navigate there afterward. If you're forever writing scripts against files in a specific project folder, this saves real time.

Method 4: The Run box (Win + R)

Press Win + R together. A small "Run" box appears — it's a leftover from much older Windows versions, kept alive because it's the fastest way to launch a program when you already know its exact name. Type powershell and press Enter or click OK.

This one has a quirk worth knowing about: on a small number of locked-down machines — work laptops with restricted policies, mostly — Run searches a system PATH that doesn't always include powershell.exe, and the box will simply do nothing when you hit Enter. If that happens to you, Method 1 (Start search) doesn't have this limitation and will work regardless.

Opening PowerShell in Windows 10

Good news if you're still on Windows 10: Methods 1, 3, and 4 above are identical — same Windows key, same search box, same File Explorer address-bar trick, same Run box. Nothing to relearn.

The right-click Start menu (Method 2) is where Windows 10 genuinely differs. Windows 10 still shows "Windows PowerShell" and "Windows PowerShell (Admin)" directly in that menu by default — it never got the Terminal swap that Windows 11 did. If yours shows "Command Prompt" and "Command Prompt (Admin)" instead, that's not a bug; it means the taskbar setting that toggles between the two ("Replace Command Prompt with Windows PowerShell in the menu when I right-click the start button") has been switched off, probably by whoever set the machine up. You can flip it back in Taskbar settings, or just use Start search instead and skip the toggle entirely.

Two PowerShell results in search — which one to click

This one confuses Windows 10 users more than Windows 11 users, since Windows 10's search tends to surface both at once: you'll sometimes see "Windows PowerShell" and "Windows PowerShell (x86)" sitting right next to each other. Windows has shipped both a 64-bit and a 32-bit version of PowerShell side by side for a long time, mainly so 32-bit-only scripts and modules from older software still have somewhere to run. For everyday use, the plain "Windows PowerShell" entry — the 64-bit one — is the one to click. Reach for "(x86)" only if a specific script or tool you're using explicitly says it needs the 32-bit version; otherwise it's just extra clutter in the search results, not a decision that matters day to day.

Running PowerShell as Administrator

A regular PowerShell window can read files, check system information, and run most everyday commands just fine. The moment a command needs to touch protected system files, the registry, another user's account, or a Windows service, it needs to run elevated — the technical name for Administrator mode.

Two ways in, both work identically on Windows 11 and Windows 10:

• Right-click, then Run as administrator. Search for PowerShell as usual, but instead of clicking the result, right-click it and choose "Run as administrator" from the menu that appears.
• The keyboard shortcut. Type powershell into Start search as normal, and instead of pressing plain Enter, press Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Same result, no mouse needed.

Either way, Windows shows a User Account Control prompt asking you to confirm. Click Yes, and the window that opens will usually say "Administrator: Windows PowerShell" in its title bar so you can tell at a glance which kind of session you're in.

Opening PowerShell from inside CMD

This is the exact question this guide originally set out to answer, and the steps haven't changed at all — it's one of the few things in this post that genuinely didn't move:

1. Open Command Prompt (search for cmd, same way you'd search for PowerShell).
2. Type powershell and press Enter.
3. The blue-and-white cmd prompt disappears and is replaced, in the same window, by a PowerShell prompt.

One detail worth knowing that the original version of this guide didn't mention: the PowerShell session you land in inherits whatever permission level cmd was already running at. If you opened Command Prompt normally and then typed powershell, you get a standard session — typing powershell won't elevate it for you. If you need an elevated PowerShell session this way, open cmd itself as administrator first (right-click cmd, Run as administrator), then type powershell inside that.

To get back to cmd from inside PowerShell, type exit and press Enter — it drops you back to the cmd prompt you started from, rather than closing the window.

PowerShell vs. PowerShell ISE: what's actually different

This was the second half of what this post originally covered, and the core distinction hasn't changed even though the recommendation around it has.

PowerShell is a console: you type a command, called a cmdlet in PowerShell's own vocabulary, and it runs immediately. It's built for one-off tasks — checking something, changing a setting, running a single fix someone gave you.

PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) is a different kind of window entirely: an editor for writing multi-line scripts, saving them as .ps1 files, and stepping through them line by line to catch mistakes before they run for real. If PowerShell is a single command, ISE is where you'd write a script that runs forty commands in sequence, in order, saved so you can run it again next week.

ISE still ships with both Windows 11 and Windows 10 — search "PowerShell ISE" the same way you'd search for regular PowerShell, and it opens. Where the recommendation has shifted since this guide first went up: Microsoft is no longer actively developing ISE and now points people toward Visual Studio Code with the PowerShell extension installed for any serious scripting work, since it gets ongoing updates and ISE doesn't. For quick one-off scripts, ISE is still perfectly usable and involves no extra download — it's already on your machine.

Ethan doesn't hedge on this one: "If you're writing five lines to fix one thing today, ISE's fine, don't overthink it. If you're building something you'll still be maintaining in a year, learn VS Code now instead of relearning your workflow later." Jake, who has exactly one three-line script he reuses to check disk space on customer machines, took that as permission to leave ISE alone.

Windows PowerShell vs. PowerShell 7: which one did you just open?

Every method above opens the same thing by default: Windows PowerShell, version 5.1, built directly into Windows and present on every install without you doing anything. It has been the built-in version for a long time and Microsoft has no plans to remove it.

There's a separate, newer version called PowerShell 7 — sometimes referred to by its executable name, pwsh, to distinguish it from the older powershell.exe. It doesn't come installed by default. You'd get it deliberately, either from the Microsoft Store or via winget (Windows's built-in package manager — open PowerShell and type winget install Microsoft.PowerShell). Once installed, it shows up as its own separate entry in Start search and as a separate profile inside Windows Terminal, running alongside Windows PowerShell rather than replacing it.

Windows Terminal vs. the classic console window

Since Windows Terminal is now what actually opens on most Windows 11 machines, it's worth knowing what you're getting instead of the plain console some readers remember from Windows 10. The classic console — the flat blue-or-black window with no tabs — still exists and still opens on Windows 10 by default, and can still be reached on Windows 11 in a couple of places, but Terminal has quietly become the front door for most people.

What Terminal adds that the classic console never had: multiple tabs in one window, so you can have a regular PowerShell tab and an Administrator one open side by side instead of juggling separate windows; split panes, so two prompts sit next to each other in the same tab; and a settings screen (reachable from the small dropdown next to the "+" button) where you can change fonts, color schemes, and which profile opens by default. None of this changes what PowerShell itself does — it's still the same commands, the same engine — it's purely about the window wrapped around it.

If you genuinely prefer the old plain console — some people do, especially on lower-spec machines where Terminal's extra polish costs a bit of startup time — searching for "Windows PowerShell" specifically in Start search, rather than "Terminal," will still open the classic console on most current builds rather than a Terminal tab.

Changing which profile Terminal opens by default

If Terminal keeps opening to Command Prompt or WSL instead of PowerShell for you, that's a setting, not a bug. Open Terminal, click the small down-arrow next to the "+" tab button, choose Settings, and look for Default profile near the top of the Startup section. Set it to Windows PowerShell (or PowerShell 7, if you've installed it and prefer it), save, and every new Terminal window from then on opens straight into the shell you actually meant to use.

The one command worth running the moment it opens

Before you type anything else, it's worth knowing exactly what you opened. Type $PSVersionTable and press Enter. It prints a small table, and the line that matters is PSVersion: if it starts with 5.1, you're in the built-in Windows PowerShell; if it starts with 7, you're in PowerShell 7. Guides you find online sometimes assume one or the other without saying so, and a command that works in PowerShell 7 will occasionally fail with an odd error in 5.1, or vice versa. Checking first, before you spend ten minutes convinced a command is broken, saves that confusion.

Making PowerShell open the way you want, every time

If you open PowerShell often enough that you're tired of retyping the same first two or three commands every single session — changing to a particular folder, setting an alias, whatever your routine is — PowerShell has a built-in way to automate that: the profile script. Type $PROFILE on its own and press Enter, and PowerShell prints the exact file path it will run automatically every time it starts, whether or not that file currently exists.

To create it, type New-Item -Path $PROFILE -Type File -Force and press Enter. Then open that file in Notepad (or the editor of your choice) and add whatever commands you want run automatically — a cd to your usual working folder, a custom alias, a startup message, anything valid PowerShell. Save it, and the next time you open PowerShell, those commands run before you even type a thing. This is entirely optional and most people never need it, but for anyone who opens PowerShell daily for the same handful of tasks, it turns a small repeated annoyance into something that just happens.

When PowerShell won't open, or won't run what you type

Search shows nothing when you type "powershell"

This is rare, but on some managed work or school laptops, an administrator has deliberately blocked PowerShell for security reasons through group policy. If Start search comes back empty and Run (Win + R) does nothing either, that's very likely deliberate on a device you don't fully control, and there's no user-side fix — it's not something to work around.

"Running scripts is disabled on this system"

This is PowerShell's execution policy — a safety feature, not a bug. By default, Windows blocks .ps1 script files from running by double-click, specifically to stop malicious scripts from executing just because someone downloaded and opened them. Typing individual commands directly into the console isn't affected by this at all; it only applies to running saved script files.

"powershell is not recognized as an internal or external command"

You'll see this specific error inside cmd, not PowerShell itself, if you try the CMD method above and it fails. It means the system PATH that cmd searches doesn't include the folder PowerShell lives in — unusual on a normal Windows install, more common on a heavily customized or repaired one. Start search (Method 1, works regardless of PATH) is the reliable fallback here rather than troubleshooting the PATH variable.

Copy, paste, and the one habit that trips up first-timers

Not about opening the window, but it's the thing almost everyone hits in the first thirty seconds of actually being inside it: pasting a command someone gave you. Right-click anywhere inside the window pastes your clipboard, no menu needed — Ctrl+V also works, but right-click has worked longer and is the reliable fallback if Ctrl+V doesn't behave. Selecting text with your mouse copies it automatically in the classic console the moment you release the button; Windows Terminal generally wants Ctrl+C after the selection instead. And the Up arrow cycles back through commands you've already run in that session, exactly like cmd.

Do you need a third-party terminal app instead?

Edge cases: laptops, tablets, VMs, and remote sessions

No physical Windows key. Some tablets and compact keyboards skip it. Click the Start icon in the taskbar with your mouse or finger instead — it opens the identical search box.

Tablet mode / touch-only devices. Tap the Start icon, then tap the search field that appears above the tiles, and type on the on-screen keyboard. Everything else works the same as with a physical keyboard.

Virtual machines. PowerShell opens exactly the same way inside a Windows VM as on physical hardware — there's nothing VM-specific about launching it. Where VMs differ is that some enterprise VM images ship with PowerShell remoting pre-configured or restricted; if commands that touch the network behave oddly, that's a VM policy question, not a launch problem.

Remote Desktop sessions. Search for PowerShell inside the remote session exactly as you would locally — it opens on the remote machine, not your local one, which is usually what people actually want when they're troubleshooting a server or another PC remotely.

Pinning it so you never have to search again

If you open PowerShell often enough that typing "powershell" every time feels tedious, right-click the search result before opening it and choose Pin to taskbar or Pin to Start. On Windows 11, there's a second option worth knowing: Windows Terminal itself has a small dropdown arrow next to its "+" tab button, and inside that dropdown you can pin the specific PowerShell profile directly, which is handy if you also use Terminal for Command Prompt or WSL and want one-click access to each.

A quick word on why this matters beyond convenience

Jake's monitor problem, in the end, took one PowerShell command to diagnose — a check against the display adapter driver that Device Manager's graphical view didn't surface clearly. That's the actual case for learning where PowerShell lives instead of avoiding it: half the "advanced" fixes people search for, for things like stuck updates, misbehaving drivers, or network resets, turn out to be one PowerShell command once you can actually get to the window. The console being two menu-clicks away instead of the one it used to be isn't worth abandoning it over.

If PowerShell itself is running fine but a specific script or command is throwing errors you don't understand, that's a different problem from opening it — worth searching separately once you're actually in.

Frequently asked questions

What is the fastest way to open PowerShell in Windows 11?

Press the Windows key, type PowerShell, and press Enter or click the result. It opens inside Windows Terminal by default on current builds.

Why is Windows PowerShell missing from the right-click Start menu?

Microsoft replaced that entry with Windows Terminal in current Windows 11 builds. Terminal still runs PowerShell, it is just launched from a different menu label now.

How do I run PowerShell as Administrator?

Right-click the PowerShell or Terminal result in search and choose Run as administrator, or press Ctrl+Shift+Enter after typing the search term.

Can I open PowerShell from Command Prompt?

Yes. Open cmd, type powershell, and press Enter. The prompt switches to PowerShell in the same window, running as whatever permission level cmd was opened with.

What is the difference between PowerShell and PowerShell ISE?

PowerShell runs commands one at a time in a console. PowerShell ISE is a scripting editor for writing, saving, and stepping through multi-line scripts, though Microsoft now points new scripting work toward Visual Studio Code instead.

Is PowerShell ISE still available in Windows 11?

Yes, it still ships as an optional feature and can be found by searching for it, but Microsoft is no longer actively developing it and recommends Visual Studio Code with the PowerShell extension for new scripting work.

What is the difference between Windows PowerShell and PowerShell 7?

Windows PowerShell (version 5.1) comes built into Windows and is what opens by default. PowerShell 7 is a separate, faster, cross-platform version you install yourself from the Microsoft Store or winget, and it opens as its own profile inside Windows Terminal.

Why does PowerShell say scripts are disabled on this system?

That is the execution policy, a safety feature that blocks unsigned or downloaded scripts from running by default. You can check it with Get-ExecutionPolicy and change it with Set-ExecutionPolicy, but only after you understand what you are relaxing.

Do I need Windows 11 Pro to open PowerShell?

No. PowerShell opens the same way on Windows 11 and Windows 10 Home as it does on Pro. Editing group policy through PowerShell-adjacent tools is where Home hits limits, not launching the console itself.

How do I open PowerShell in a specific folder?

Open the folder in File Explorer, click into the address bar, type powershell, and press Enter. It opens already pointed at that folder, saving you a cd command.

How do I pin PowerShell or Terminal to my taskbar?

Search for it, right-click the result, and choose Pin to taskbar. On Windows 11 you can also pin the specific PowerShell profile from inside Windows Terminal's dropdown menu.

Does Windows 10 still show Windows PowerShell in the right-click Start menu?

Windows 10 still shows Windows PowerShell there by default, but a taskbar setting can swap that entry for Command Prompt. If yours shows Command Prompt instead, that toggle has been switched.

Can I still use PowerShell after Windows 10 support ended?

Yes, PowerShell keeps working on Windows 10 exactly as before. What ended was free security updates for Windows itself, which is a separate issue from any single built-in tool still running.

What does Run as administrator actually change in PowerShell?

It raises the session to elevated permissions, which is required for commands that touch system files, the registry, other user accounts, or installed services. Without it, those commands fail with an access denied error.

Why does typing powershell in Run (Win+R) sometimes do nothing?

Run launches programs by their executable name, and on a small number of locked-down or heavily customized systems the powershell.exe path isn't on the system PATH the Run box searches. Start menu search does not have this limitation, so it is the more reliable fallback.

What's the difference between Windows PowerShell and Windows PowerShell (x86)?

They're the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the same built-in PowerShell, shipped side by side mainly for older 32-bit scripts and modules. For everyday use, pick the plain Windows PowerShell (64-bit) entry unless a specific script tells you it needs the x86 version.

Revision note. Originally published November 26, 2016. Rewritten August 21, 2026 for Windows 11 and Windows 10. The core steps for launching PowerShell from CMD, which this post first set out to explain, haven't moved at all — what's changed is the right-click Start menu, which now opens Windows Terminal instead of a plain PowerShell console, and the guidance around PowerShell ISE, which Microsoft has since nudged toward Visual Studio Code. If you landed here chasing down a broken shortcut you swore used to work, you weren't imagining it — hope this got you back to a working console.