User context, don't install to `%OneDriveCommercial%` if OneDrive for Business Known Folder Move (KFM) is enabled

[o-l-a-v]

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

Behavior today

Default install location for PowerShell scripts and modules when specifying user context, is:

• Windows PowerShell: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
• PowerShell Core: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\PowerShell\Modules

But if you have OneDrive for Business set up with Known Folder Move (KFM), default install location for user context is:

• Windows PowerShell: %OneDriveCommercial%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
• PowerShell Core: %OneDriveCommercial%\Documents\PowerShell\Modules

Why is it a problem

This is not ideal, as you'll end up with hundreds or thousands of small files that will be synced up and down to OneDrive, which might cause OneDrive sync issues, and other performance hits.

I currently install all modules to AllUsers scope for this reason. Currently 2.7 GB, 12 617 files, 2 315 folders.

Screenshot

If I did not care about this myself, I'd be using more than 1 / 10 of the capacity / max number of files recommendation for the OneDrive client, just for PowerShell modules.

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us#synctoomany

Proposed technical implementation details

In my opinion, there is no reason to install PowerShell modules from PowerShell Gallery to OneDrive by default when KFM is active. A publicly available PowerShell module is nothing unique that needs to be backed up/ synced.

Option 1 - Cmdlet to set PSResourceLocation for Process/User/Machine

Add cmdlet to set PSResourceLocation for scope Process/User/Machine. For instance:

Set-PSResourceLocation -Scope 'Process' -Path ('{0}\Microsoft\PowerShell' -f $env:LOCALAPPDATA)

It could also:

• Add path to [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('PSModulePath','<scope>').
• Have a Boolean parameter that specifiec whether to move modules and scripts installed by PackageManagement, PowerShellGet and Microsoft.PowerShell.PSResourceGet from old path given scope to new path.
  • Ask user if parameter wasn't specified.

Option 2 - Use first path in $env:PSModulePath if set

If I've set [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('PSModulePath','User').Split(';')[0] to be somewhere else than the default location for <scope>, use it.

Option 3 - Don't follow KFM redirect

Users must opt in to install PowerShell modules to OneDrive, instead of current default behavior.

• Windows PowerShell: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
• PowerShell Core: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\PowerShell\Modules

Option 4 - Change default location for user scope to %LOCALAPPDATA%

Change default location for user context to:

• Windows PowerShell: %LOCALAPPDATA%\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
• PowerShell Core: %LOCALAPPDATA%\PowerShell\Modules

[SydneyhSmith]

Thanks @o-l-a-v for opening this issue, we are investigating this-- to confirm have you hit this issue with our v3 previews?

[o-l-a-v]

Don't remember if I've tried with v3 yet.

Should be easy enough for you to reproduce? :)

[o-l-a-v]

Tested with beta 3.0.12, it installs to %OneDriveCommercial%\Documents from both Windows PowerShell and PowerShell 7.2.2.

\WindowsPowerShell with Windows PowerShell, \PowerShell with v7.2.2.

• One more thing I noticed: Running the install command under first from Windows PowerShell, then with PowerShell v7.2.2, PowerShellGet says it's alrady installed. But it is really, when it get's installed to a different directory with PowerShell Core vs. Windows PowerShell? IMO, there needs to be some more thinking about both where to install, and detection logic.

# Import module downloaded from PowerShellGallery, extracted with 7-Zip
Import-Module -Name ('{0}\powershellget.3.0.12-beta\PowerShellGet.psd1' -f [System.Environment]::GetFolderPath('Desktop'))

# Check imported modules
Get-Module

# Install a module in user context
PowerShellGet\Install-PSResource -Name 'Az.Cdn' -Scope 'CurrentUser' -Repository 'PSGallery' -Quiet -Confirm:$false -TrustRepository -Reinstall

[o-l-a-v]

Related issues from PowerShell/PowerShell:

• https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues/15552
• https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues/8069

[SydneyhSmith]

Thanks @o-l-a-v we are planning to do a deeper dive into these (and other path) issues after our next release

[Jaykul]

Honestly, whether or not the changes in PowerShell/15552 are made, having a parameter set which gives us the ability to specify the -InstallPath instead of a -Scope when calling Install-PSResource would allow users who really want or need to do this to just change their $Env:PSModulePath and set a $PSDefaultParameterValues to make it happen -- without needing to learn to use Save-PSResource instead.

On company developer laptops, OneDrive routinely causes "Access to the cloud file is denied" errors when trying to upgrade modules there, and starts needlessly mirroring the files back to the cloud, slowing down install even more. Not to mention that every time I remove an old version of Az or Microsoft.Graph it causes that scary warning about how something has deleted thousands of files from my OneDrive...

[BradCalvertLPNT]

I was more than happy to solve this in OneDrive "Choose Folders" option, but that doesn't work remotely the way I expected. I just wanted to exclude the Modules folder from syncing entirely but unchecking it in that screen does very different things than that.

[fowl2]

Having modules roam between machines (via OneDrive) is desired functionality for me! Please don't turn it off!

I can see that some might want to turn it off, which they can at the moment by setting $env:PSModulesPath.

I can also see that some sort of alternative mechanism might be desired - eg. some sort of placeholder file, etc. although not all modules are available from the gallery, so quite a bit of design required there.

I would strongly recommend caution when breaking existing workflows by disabling/altering the currently enabled-by-default feature.

[anamnavi]

@fowl2 thanks for reaching out and providing insight into your use case with this default behavior. This is being discussed and worked on from the PowerShell project side, on this issue linked here: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues/15552

If you can share this comment there, that would be great thanks.