PS2EXE as well as its GUI front-end, Win-PS2EXE, are designed to work only with Windows PowerShell (the legacy, ships-with-Windows, Windows-only edition of PowerShell whose latest and last version is 5.1), and not also with PowerShell (Core) 7 (the modern, cross-platform, install-on-demand edition), at least as of this writing.

• The compiled executables require a compatible Windows PowerShell version to be present at runtime, because the executable isn’t fully self-contained.

• In that sense, building on Windows PowerShell only has one advantage: The latter is guaranteed to be present on target machines, unlike PowerShell (Core) 7.

If you can assume the presence of PowerShell (Core) 7 on all machines where your executable must run, there is an – inefficient – workaround:

• From the script you’re compiling, make a call to pwsh.exe, the PowerShell (Core) 7 CLI, passing the code to execute via a script block, as shown below.

  • This invariably slows execution down, due to the overhead of creating another child process.

• The sample script below assumes that pwsh.exe is discoverable via $env:PATH, and therefore uses the file name only.

  • If this is not the case or you want to hard-code the executable’s path for predictability, use the full path, and invoke it via the call operator; e.g., to launch a winget-installed copy:

    & $env:LOCALAPPDATAMicrosoftWindowsAppspwsh.exe -NoProfile { ... }
    

Sample source-code script:

# Content of a sample *.ps1 file to be compiled to an *.exe file
# with Invoke-ps2exe

# Sample parameter declarations.
param(
  [string] $Foo,
  [int] $Bar
)

# Not running in PowerShell (Core) 7? Re-invoke with the latter's CLI.
if (-not $IsCoreCLR) {
  # Create a helper script block that incorporates this script's,
  # to facilitate passing arguments through faithfully.
  $scriptBlock = [scriptblock]::Create(@"
   param(`$bound, `$undeclared)
   . { $($MyInvocation.MyCommand.ScriptBlock) } @bound @undeclared
"@)
  pwsh.exe -noprofile $scriptBlock -args $PSBoundParameters, (@(), $args)[$null -ne $args]
  # Exit and pass pwsh.exe's exit code through.
  exit $LASTEXITCODE
}

# Getting here means that the code is run by PowerShell (Core) 7 now.

# == Place your PowerShell (Core) 7 code here. ==
# Any arguments originally passed to your *.exe file
# have been passed through, irrespective of whether the were bound
# to formally declared parameters or anonymously positionally.

# Sample command that uses ForEach-Object -Parallel
1..3 | ForEach-Object -Parallel {
  "ID of thread #${_}: " + [System.Threading.Thread]::CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId
}

Note:

• The if (-not $IsCoreCLR) { ... } statement is generic, reusable code that you can incorporate into any script compiled to an .exe file via Invoke-ps2exe:

  • It re-invokes the script’s code via pwsh.exe, the PowerShell (Core) 7 CLI, and exits right after, passing the latter’s output and exit code through.

    • The automatic $IsCoreCLR variable, which is only $true (and only defined) in PowerShell (Core) 7, is used to detect whether the script code is being run in Windows PowerShell or PowerShell (Core) 7; another option would be to use $PSVersionTable.PSEdition -ne 'Core'

  • A helper script block is created that wraps the script’s own script block (obtainable via $MyInvocation.MyCommand.ScriptBlock) in order to facilitate passing any arguments received through to the re-invocation via pwsh.exe, by way of the automatic $PSBoundParameters variable and the automatic $args variable, using splatting to pass the arguments to the original script code.