About Desktop Mode

About PowerShell Universal Desktop mode.

Desktop mode is deprecated and will be removed in PowerShell Universal v5.

Desktop mode runs PowerShell Universal as a desktop application. It installs to the current user's application data folders and does not require administrative access to run. It runs as the current user and with a tray icon to access the console and configuration files.

Install Desktop Mode

To install desktop mode, you can download the desktop mode installer from our website.

Differences in Desktop Mode

Desktop mode runs slightly differently than PowerShell Universal as a service.

Application Context

The desktop application uses WebView2 to display the PowerShell Universal admin console within the application window. The PowerShell Universal server integrates with the desktop application to provide desktop-specific features based on the configuration of PSU.

The desktop application provides a tray icon that can be used to exit PowerShell Universal, view the admin UI and open the configuration folder in VS Code.

PowerShell Universal will not run when the user is not logged in so scheduled jobs will not execute.

Configuration

Configuration files are stored in %AppData%\PowerShellUniversal rather than the ProgramData folder. You can quickly access the configuration folder by using the PowerShell Universal tray icon.

Dashboards

Desktop mode does not support PowerShell Universal Dashboard v2 frameworks. It actually doesn't support anything except the latest framework version. It will not deploy copies of the framework.

Security

Desktop mode runs as the current user as a regular desktop application. It starts the PowerShell Universal web server. The server only listens on localhost. You will not be able to change security settings for the server.