Detent Point
- Install it from the Microsoft Store. Microsoft signs the package at Store publication and Windows verifies the signature at install, so there are no unknown-publisher warnings and no elevation prompt — the install is per-user.
- Nothing to install first. DetentShell is a 64-bit Windows desktop app and ships self-contained: the package carries its own .NET runtime.
- Launch DetentShell. It does not ask for an account or a sign-in, and there is no configuration wizard. The window that opens is the subject of the rest of this page.
On first launch a console fills the window. That is the classic ISE layout, on purpose: the script pane starts hidden and the prompt is ready the moment the window opens. The console is a live PowerShell 7 session hosted by the app. Try it:
PS> $PSVersionTable.PSVersion
# type it at the prompt and press Enter (no setup step comes first)To start editing a script, reveal the script pane any of three ways: File > New (Ctrl+N), File > Open (Ctrl+O), or View > Show Script Pane. The first reveal shows a tab named Untitled-1.ps1 that was already there. The app creates it quietly at startup so the console has a session to run in from the first keystroke.
With a script in the pane, F5 runs it and F8 runs just the selected lines, the same keys the ISE uses. Output lands in the console below.
DetentShell uses the two-level tab model the ISE used. The outer tab strip holds PowerShell sessions. Each session is its own runspace with its own console. The inner strip holds that session’s script tabs, which all share the session’s runspace. A variable, function, or module you define in one script tab is visible in the others and at the console prompt, exactly the “several Untitled tabs under one PowerShell 1” behavior ISE users know.
Switching sessions swaps the console too. Each session keeps its own prompt and its own scrollback, so two sessions’ output never interleaves.
Ctrl+N | New script tab in the current session (shares its runspace) |
Ctrl+T | New PowerShell session (a fresh, isolated runspace) |
Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab | Next / previous script tab |
Ctrl+W | Close the current tab (prompts if unsaved) |
File > Open (Ctrl+O) uses the standard Windows dialog with multi-select enabled: Ctrl-click or Shift-click several .ps1, .psm1, or .psd1 files and each opens in its own tab, in order. Opening a file also reveals the script pane if it was hidden. Files you have opened before are remembered between launches under File > Recent Files, most recent first.
Open Tools > Settings (or the Settings toggle on the toolbar). Change what you want and click Apply. The change takes effect without restarting the app (a few per-tab options, like IntelliSense behavior, pick up on the next tab you open) and is written to a settings.json file so it loads again on the next launch.
Theme. Eight themes ship: Light, Dark, Sage, Terminal Green, Classic Console, Amber Glow, High Contrast, and Sepia. Sage, a pale sage-green editor over a deep forest-green console, is the out-of-box default. The whole window follows the theme: editor, console, panels, syntax colors.
Default PowerShell version. Choose 7 or 5.1. This sets which engine new tabs target by default.
The engine picker and the compatibility badge. On the toolbar, each tab has a “Run in:” dropdown with three choices: Auto, PowerShell 7, and Windows PowerShell 5.1. The two fixed choices pin the engine for that tab. Auto lets the compatibility classifier choose, and the color-coded badge beside the dropdown shows its verdict for the current script:
- Green: PowerShell 7 compatible; runs in-process at full fidelity.
- Yellow: uses 5.1-only cmdlets (WMI, snap-ins); runnable in a Windows PowerShell 5.1 child process.
- Red: cannot run in PowerShell 7 at all (workflow keyword, .NET-Framework-only dependencies).
Under Auto, a script that classifies non-green gets a plain question before it runs: “This script uses Windows PowerShell 5.1 features. Run it in Windows PowerShell 5.1?” Runs targeted at 5.1 use the Windows PowerShell installation already on your machine, out of process. DetentShell does not bundle a 5.1 engine.
Everything the app persists sits in one folder under your local application data directory (%LOCALAPPDATA%, i.e. C:\Users\you\AppData\Local\...):
settings.json: every setting, as plain JSON. It is the same file the Settings panel writes, so you can hand-edit it. An invalid value is rejected at startup with a message naming the field and the allowed values, rather than being silently ignored.logs\: one log file per day, the fourteen most recent kept. If something goes wrong, this is what to look at (and what to send us).recent-files.json: the recent-files list.
The exact folder name under %LOCALAPPDATA% is being finalized together with the installer. This page will name it precisely when the download goes live. The file names above are already the real ones.
From here: the keyboard shortcuts reference, the how-to guides, the full feature tour, or screenshots if you want to see the themes and layout before installing. Questions the docs don’t answer: FAQ or contact us.
PS> Start-Process "https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9pdxw5ft80g0"
# Opens the Microsoft Store listingIn the Microsoft Store now. DetentShell is $49.99 in the Microsoft Store, with a free trial. Volume licensing for teams is handled separately.