PowerShell may not be the most common tool for casual users, but it’s easily the most versatile utility available on Windows 11. PowerShell supports more commands than Command Prompt and is built on top of the .Net stack, providing more advanced scripting facilities than its predecessor.

Better yet, you can import third-party modules to enhance PowerShell’s capabilities. So, we’ve compiled a list of the best PowerShell modules worth trying out for Windows 11 users.

Before you can install these modules, you'll need to run the Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser command to enable PowerShell script execution on your Windows 11 machine. Most of these modules can be installed with the Import-Module module-name command, though some of them require the Import-Module module-name command before you can access them from your PowerShell instance.

11 PSWriteHTML and powershell-yaml

Great for coders

Coding and PowerShell often go hand-in-hand. If you’re into web development, you’ll find the PSWriteHTML module’s ability to generate HTML-based reports, dashboards, and infographics a solid addition to your PowerShell repertoire.

On the other hand, the powershell-yaml module is designed for home lab and automation enthusiasts whose daily workloads involve heavy YAML scripting. Besides helping you transform arrays and strings into YAML files, this module also supports YAML to JSON conversions, making it fairly useful when you need a quick and easy means to serialize and de-serialize YAML configs.

10 NTFSSecurity

Who needs GUI when you set NTFS permissions using PowerShell commands?

Access Control Lists may not be something casual users dabble in during their day-to-day tasks. However, ACLs and permissions are particularly useful when you have multiple users accessing files on your Windows-based Samba server.

If you’re a Windows Admin well-versed in the art of PowerShell scripting, the NTFSSecurity module can simplify permission management with its rich set of cmdlets and it’s particularly helpful when you need to quickly modify the privileges of multiple directories.

9 AutomatedLab

Hyper-V home labbers, rejoice

Experimenting with cool projects is undoubtedly one of the best aspects of maintaining a home lab. However, the excitement can start to wear off when you end up spending extra time configuring the same OS and packages on your umpteenth virtual machine.

Thankfully, AutomatedLab can trivialize the tedious aspects of your Hyper-V home lab. From taking care of the initial OS configuration to sharing files between VMs and fine-tuning the essential settings, AutomatedLab is a powerful tool for your Hyper-V home server.

8 PSWindowsUpdate

To wrest control of Windows Updates from Microsoft

Despite the security benefits of staying up-to-date with the latest version of your OS, the intrusive nature of Windows Updates can make them annoying at times. Pair that with Microsoft's history of releasing half-baked updates rife with bugs, it’s a good idea to micro-manage the updates on your daily driver.

Capable of scanning, installing, removing, and even hiding the pesky Update notifications, the PSWindowsUpdate module is a neat utility for most Windows 11 users. Heck, it can even execute commands on remote machines and VMs, making it just as useful for home lab lovers.

7 DBATools

The perfect companion for SQL wizards

Whether you’re a web developer or a machine learning enthusiast, you’ll eventually have to dabble in SQL databases. This makes DBATools a neat little PowerShell module for .NET devs who wish to work with SQL database servers.

Utilitywise, DBATools allows you to perform most of the database management tasks, be it creating backups, executing queries, changing schemas, checking SPNs, or even running pester tests.

6 Oh-my-posh and Terminal-Icons

Because appearance matters

PowerShell may be a solid tool for power users, but it’s not exactly the most beginner-friendly scripting utility. However, there are plenty of ways to customize your PowerShell experience to make its drab UI a bit more appealing.

For starters, the Oh-my-posh module contains numerous fonts and themes, and you can tweak the designs of pre-existing themes to customize your PowerShell experience even further. Factor in the neat icons offered with the Terminal-Icons module, and you’ve got everything you need to create a personalized PowerShell UI.

5 Transferetto

For all your file-sharing needs

Besides SSH, the networking landscape has several protocols to help you manage your servers and virtual machines. FTP, FTPS, and SFTP are reliable file-sharing protocols you can use to transfer ISO files, config documents, and backups between two systems over the network.

The Transferetto module brings these useful protocols to PowerShell, making it quite effective for power users who prefer transferring files using terminal commands.

4 PSReadLine

Bring the power of auto-complete to PowerShell

Modern IDEs have several QoL features to enhance your coding experience, and the auto-complete is one of them. But if you're a power IDE user who's tired of manually typing out commands on PowerShell, you'll be glad to know that it's possible to integrate this facility into your PowerShell workloads with the PSReadLine module.

What’s more, PSReadLine brings a host of other neat additions from bash and Emacs, including syntax coloring, customizable key-bindings, sharing command history between live PowerShell instances, and text yanking.

3 ImportExcel, PSWritePDF, and PSWriteWord

Edit documents like a pro

Windows 11 supports multiple office productivity suites, ranging from the paid Microsoft 365 to the free LibreOffice and OpenOffice apps. But what if you could edit spreadsheets, PDF files, and files documents inside the good ol’ PowerShell UI?

Well, thanks to the trio of ImportExcel, PSWritePDF, and PSWriteWord, you can manage entire documents using PowerShell cmdlets. While these modules are far from ideal for the average user, being able to tweak .csv and .docx files inside PowerShell can come in handy if your workloads involve hardcore data analysis operations on spreadsheets and documents.

2 AWSPowerShell

For the AWS users out there

Although home labs are perfect for tinkerers, a dedicated VPS platform is better when you need a robust production environment for professional tasks. Armed with the holy trifecta of a massive documentation pool, beginner-friendly UI, and sensible pricing, AWS is one of the most popular on-demand computing platforms.

If you’re planning to combine your PowerShell scripting skills with the VPS facilities offered by AWS, AWSPowerShell is a must-have module, at least on the normal PowerShell version 5.1. For tinkerers rocking a newer release of PowerShell, you may need to install the AWSPowerShell.NetCore and AWS.Tools modules instead.