PowerShell preferences, items in grey are available in PS 5.0, but undocumented and possibly unavailable in PS 7.0:
Variable Default Value Possible values
-------- ------------- --------------------------------
$ConfirmPreference High High, Medium, Low, or None.
$DebugPreference SilentlyContinue (Stop | Inquire | Continue | SilentlyContinue)
Used by: Write-Debug
Error stream 5
$ErrorActionPreference Continue (Stop | Inquire | Continue | SilentlyContinue | Break)
Used by: Write-Error [Suspend and Ignore are for per-command use only.]
Error stream 2
$ErrorView NormalView in PS 5,
ConciseView in PS 7 NormalView, CategoryView, or ConciseView.
$FormatEnumerationLimit 4 Any Int32 number.
$InformationPreference SilentlyContinue (Stop | Inquire | Continue | SilentlyContinue)
Used by: Write-Information
Error stream 6
$LogCommandHealthEvent $False $True (Logged) or $False (not logged)
$LogCommandLifecycleEvent $False $True (Logged) or $False (not logged)
$LogEngineHealthEvent $True $True (Logged) or $False (not logged)
$LogEngineLifecycleEvent $True $True (Logged) or $False (not logged)
$LogProviderLifecycleEvent $True $True (Logged) or $False (not logged)
$LogProviderHealthEvent $True $True (Logged) or $False (not logged)
$MaximumAliasCount 4096 Max no. of aliases available to the session. Valid values: 1024-32768
$MaximumDriveCount 4096 Max no. of drives available, excluding those provided by the OS.
$MaximumErrorCount 256 Valid values: 256 - 32768
$MaximumFunctionCount 4096 Max no. of functions available to the session.
$MaximumHistoryCount 64 Max no. of entries saved in the command history. Valid values: 1-32768
$MaximumVariableCount 4096 Max no. of variables available to the session.
$OFS Space character (" ") (converting an array to string.)
$OutputEncoding ASCIIEncoding
Valid values: Objects derived from an Encoding class, such as:
ASCIIEncoding, SBCSCodePageEncoding, UTF7Encoding,
UTF8Encoding, UTF32Encoding, and UnicodeEncoding.
The $OutputEncoding preference only applies to how PowerShell communicates with external
programs (sending strings) it has nothing to do with the encoding that the PS output
redirection operators and PowerShell cmdlets use to save to files. [more]
$ProgressPreference Continue (stop | Inquire | continue | SilentlyContinue)
$PSDefaultParameterValues @{} (empty hash table) Introduced in PS 3.0
$PSEmailServer $Null (none)
$PSModuleAutoLoadingPreference All
$PSModuleAutoloading Import installed modules automatically.
$PSSessionApplicationName 'wsman'
$PSSessionConfigurationName 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell'
$PSSessionOption See New-PSSessionOption
$Transcript $Null (none)
$VerbosePreference SilentlyContinue (Stop | Inquire | Continue | SilentlyContinue)
Used by: Write-Verbose
Error stream 4
$WarningPreference Continue (Stop | Inquire | Continue | SilentlyContinue)
Used by: Write-Warning
Error stream 3
$WhatIfPreference $False
The Error stream 1 is for Std Output (Write-Output) this has no corresponding preference variable.
Write-Host writes to Error stream 6 (the same as Write-Information) but it has no preference variable
so in effect Write-Host is always set to Continue and will always display unless stream 6 is redirected.
The $PSDefaultParameterValues preference variable lets you specify custom default values for just one specific cmdlet or advanced function, see Help about_Parameters_Default_Values for more.
Examples
Display the value of the $ConfirmPreference variable.
PS C:\> $ConfirmPreference
High
View the name and value of a preference variable:
PS C:\> get-variable DebugPreference
Name Value ---- ----- DebugPreference Silently Continue
Assign the value 'Medium' to the $ConfirmPreference variable.
PS C:\> $ConfirmPreference = 'Medium'
Setting $OFS (the Output Field Separator) to display an array with different separators:
PS C:\> &{ $a = 1,2,3; "$a"} 1 2 3 PS C:\> &{ $OFS="-"; $a = 1,2,3; "$a"} 1-2-3
"Democracy cannot be static. Whatever is static is dead" ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Related PowerShell Cmdlets:
Common Parameters - Debug, -ErrorAction, -OutVariable, -Verbose etc
How-to: Redirection (streams 1 - 6)
Variables - Environment variables.
Automatic variables - Variables created and maintained by PowerShell $_, $Args, $Error, $Home etc.
Array Variables
help about_preference_variables