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We subscribe to idea that developers should release early and release often. dbatools has been around since 2014 but is still in prerelease (0.9.x). It's been tested by thousands of people and each release gets better and better because of your early suggestions, bug reports and feedback.

PowerShell Core (aka PowerShell 6+) went GA (generally available) and supported in January of 2018. Please be aware at this time we do not support this version of PowerShell. It is on the roadmap but at this time there is no estimated time we will be supporting it.

We plan for version 1.0 to be gorgeous and standardized. This means that we'll be introducing breaking changes by fixing our bad habits (inconsistent parameter names, etc). We're unsure when 1.0 will be finalized but will announce it on our blog when it is.

Need a detailed walk-thru? Please see our New to PowerShell? section below all of the install methods.

Minimum Requirements

Server

• SQL Server 2000
• No PowerShell needed on the host for SQL Server-only commands 😮
• PowerShell remoting enabled on the host for Windows commands

Workstation

• Windows 7 with PowerShell v3

dbatools is not required on the server. For more information on installation and requirements see this post.

Method 1: Install dbatools from the PowerShell Gallery

The PowerShell Gallery and the command Install-Module are natively available in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. If you run Windows 7, 8, Server 2012 & below you can either install PackageManagement from powershellgallery.com or simply skip to method 2.

Install-Module dbatools

Install-Module requires Run As Administrator, and installs dbatools globally. Don't have admin access or want to install dbatools only for yourself?

Install-Module dbatools -Scope CurrentUser

Method 2: For legacy (Win7, Win8, etc) systems: scripted installer directly from GitHub

Invoke-Expression (Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing http://dbatools.io/in)

This will install dbatools locally (for just the current user) to the DocumentsWindowsPowerShellModules folder. Note: please only use Invoke-Expression (Invoke-WebRequest..) from sources you trust, like us 👍

Method 3: Download the zip directly and manually import the module.

Once you've extracted the folder, make sure you rename it from dbatools-master or dbatools-development to plain o' dbatools and place it somewhere in $env:PSMODULEPATH.

Method 4: Clone the repository from GitHub

git clone https://github.com/sqlcollaborative/dbatools

Method 5: Offline install

Don't have Internet access on your DBA workstation? Check out our offline install guide.

Method 6: chocolatey!

Now, you can even install dbatools using chocolatey

choco install dbatools

New to PowerShell?

If you're new to PowerShell and would like in-depth walk-thrus and more, please visit:

• walk-thru: installing modules from the powershell gallery.
• getting started with powershell
• offline installs of dbatools
• talking to your security team about powershell and dbatools

Using dbatools

Installing the module will make hundreds of commands available to you. Here's a few:

Unsure what to do next? Visit the Getting Started for more information and code samples. Or check a list of all the features, which includes some pretty documentation.

Like what you see? Please rate this module on Microsoft Script Center!