Write to Profile File After Installing PowerShell Module with PowerShellGet

As of PowerShell 3.0, a module is automatically imported when a command from the module is invoked. This was a brilliant on Microsoft's part; however, it did require that modules are located in a location where PowerShell looks for modules by default. Makes sense. You can see those locations by running the following command:

$env:PSModulePath -split ';'

Is there a reason you'd rather not use one of the paths stored in the above environmental variable? That said, I'd keep your code out of the "C:\Windows\System32..." path. The other options are better: "C:\Program Files\PowerShell\Modules" (AllUsers) and "C:\Users\tommymaynard\Documents\PowerShell\Modules" (CurrentUser). Depending on your PowerShell version/OS, those path could be different. You won't need to write an Import-Module command into a $PROFILE script if you get the module into a preferred location. Maybe you already know this, but maybe not.

You're not going to get Install-Module to write to any of the $PROFILE scripts.

$PROFILE | Select-Object -Property *

Well, not by default anyway. You could write your own Install-Module function, that runs PowerShellGet's Install-Module function, and includes writing to various $PROFILE scripts. The problem is that you'll need to include logic so you don't blow away the contents of someone's $PROFILE script if it's not empty, and only append to it.

Seriously though, this is turning into a lot of work, when you could drop the module into a location where PowerShell can find it on its own.

Edit: It just occurred to me, you can add a value/path to the $env:PSModulePath environmental variable. It's a single string with semi-colon delimiters:

$env:PSModulePath.GetType().Name

Therefore, it'd look like this:

$env:PSModulePath += ';C:\Another\Path'

That's great and all, but again how might you stage this, right? It takes you back to the write-to-all-the-$PROFILE-scripts problem,... although you may be able to update the variable via Group Policy Preferences. Again, probably better to just relocate your module.