PowerShell $PROFILE, Variables and NoteProperty / Add-Member - powershell

Question

$profile is causing me some headaches. $Profile.GetType() resolves to String which is fine, but it has NoteProperty values:
$profile | Get-Member -Type NoteProperty
AllUsersAllHosts, AllUsersCurrentHost, CurrentUserAllHosts, CurrentUserCurrentHost
When I type $profile, the CurrentUserCurrentHost NoteProperty is returned. This is fine, but I need to change this value - it's complicated, but my corporate VPN uses a network profile and when I am online it tries to reference that location for my $profile meaning that every console startup takes 9 seconds (horribly slow). I can get that down to 1 sec if the profile is loaded locally, but that means changing these values. To do this, I put the following into the AllUsersAllHosts profile.ps1
$profile = C:\Users\($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1"
That's fine, but by doing this, I find that all of the NoteProperty values are deleted! So I tried:
$profile.CurrentUserCurrentHost = C:\Users\($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1"
But this fails, as the root value of $Profile continues to point at the network profile and Console startup is 9 seconds again!
I then also noticed the following weirdness:
$x = [string]$profile
$x -eq $profile
Ny main questions are:
• Why does $x return True even though $x has none of the NoteProperty values in $profile (as the objects are definitely not the same!)?
• How do I control what the root value of $profile is without destroying the NoteProperty values, and
• How can I update .CurrentUserAllHosts and .CurrentUserCurrentHost in such a way that the root value will also update accordingly? i.e. Even if I do the below, the root value of $profile remains unchanged (still points at the very slow network profile location):
Add-Member -InputObject $PROFILE -NotePropertyName "AllUsersAllHosts" -NotePropertyValue "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\profile.ps1"
Add-Member -InputObject $PROFILE -NotePropertyName "AllUsersCurrentHost" -NotePropertyValue "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1"
Add-Member -InputObject $PROFILE -NotePropertyName "CurrentUserAllHosts" -NotePropertyValue "C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\profile.ps1"
Add-Member -InputObject $PROFILE -NotePropertyName "CurrentUserCurrentHost" -NotePropertyValue "C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1"

Answer 1

While it is technically possible to copy NoteProperty members from one string instance to another (see below), that won't help you, unfortunately:
PowerShell exposes the $PROFILE variable for the user's benefit:
It doesn't use that variable's values internally to determine the profile locations when it loads profiles,
these profile locations are not configurable.
You should treat $PROFILE as a read-only variable, even though it can technically be modified.
For workarounds, see the answer to this related question.
If starting interactive sessions is the focus, the most promising approach is to create a dedicated shortcut file (*.lnk) for launching your PowerShell sessions, defined with a target command such as the following:
powershell -noprofile -noexit -c ". c:\CustomProfileDir\profile.ps1"
To use PowerShell [Core] 6+, substitute pwsh for powershell.
Copying NoteProperty members between objects:
Note:
As stated, this will not solve your problem, but it illustrates how NoteProperty members can be copied from one object to another, even between strings that have different values.
With [string] instances specifically, using -PassThru and assigning back to the input variable ($obj = $obj | Add-Member -PassThru ...) is required in order for the NoteProperty members to be retained; for other types, $obj | Add-Member ... is sufficient.
# Assign the new string value to a new (temporary) variable.
$newProfile = '/path/to/my.ps1'
# Copy the NoteProperty members from the original, decorated string
# to the new variable's string instance.
$PROFILE.psobject.properties | where MemberType -eq 'NoteProperty' | foreach {
$newProfile = $newProfile |
Add-Member -PassThru -NotePropertyName $_.Name -NotePropertyValue $_.Value
}
# You can now assign the new variable to the old one,
# but note that *with $PROFILE that won't help*.
# $PROFILE SHOULD BE TREATED AS READ-ONLY.
$PROFILE = $newProfile

Answer 2

As #mklement0 pointed out, I cannot bypass the functionality of $profile, but I can trick it. Without the below, all shells and scripts take 6.5 to 9 sec to start when I am remotely connected to my corporate VPN (part of that, about 3 seconds is my $profile functions etc). With the below, all consoles and scripts startup in 1 second (and that includes my $profile functions about 1000 lines of code). Putting this solution here in case of help to others.
Running the code at the bottom of this answer results in pushing the following into my $Profile.AllUsersAllHosts which will now always reference a profile at the default C:\ location (and correctly per host type as well - console, ISE, VSCode etc).
Set-Location C:\Users\$($env:Username)
# Prevent loading profile from network share
if ($Profile.CurrentUserCurrentHost -ne "C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\$(($Profile).split(`"\`")[-1])") {
$Profile = "C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\$(($Profile).split(`"\`")[-1])"
if (Test-Path "$Profile") { . $Profile }
}
All I then need to do is delete any profiles on the network share and now I get 1 second load times whether connected remotely to the VPN or not, and whether I open a console or a script etc.
Write-Host ""
Write-Host "Do you want to update `$Profile.AllUsersAllHosts to always redirect to C:\Users\$($env:Username) ?"
Write-Host "This can significantly speed up PowerShell load times when working with a network share over a VPN."
Write-Host "Note that this is just a bypass to always use the *default* profile location on C:\."
Write-Host " `$Profile.AllUsersAllHosts = C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\profile.ps1"
Write-Host " `$Profile.CurrentHostCurrentUser = C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\$(($Profile).split("\"))[-1]_profile.ps1"
Write-Host ""
$ProfileAdmin = "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\profile.ps1"
# Use (($Profile).split("\"))[-1] to capture correct prefix PowerShell, VSCode. $ShellId does not work for VSCode etc
$ProfileUser = "C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\$(($Profile).split('\')[-1])"
$ProfileUserText = '"C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\$(($Profile).split(`"\`")[-1])"'
Write-Host "Press any key to use `$Profile.AllUsersAllHosts to stop using a profile from a network share"
pause
# - Create $Profile.AllUsersAllHosts
# - Set-Location C:\Users\$($env:Username) (override Admin defaulting into system32)
# - If the system decides that it will use C:\ have to check that so that we do not double-load $Profile!
# - If that condition is ok, set $Profile = "C:\Users\$($env:Username)\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\$($ShellId)_profile.ps1"
# - Then just dotsource $Profile as it's set to the C:\ drive as required.
if (!(Test-Path $(Split-Path $ProfileAdmin))) { mkdir $(Split-Path $ProfileAdmin) -Force }
if (!(Test-Path $(Split-Path $ProfileUser))) { mkdir $(Split-Path $ProfileUser) -Force }
Write-Host "`nCreating backup of existing profile ..."
If (Test-Path $ProfileAdmin) { Copy-Item -Path "$($ProfileAdmin)" -Destination "$($ProfileAdmin)_$(Get-Date -format "yyyy-MM-dd__HH-mm-ss").txt" }
Set-Content -Path $ProfileAdmin -Value "Set-Location C:\Users\`$(`$env:Username)"
Add-Content -Path $ProfileAdmin -Value ""
Add-Content -Path $ProfileAdmin -Value "# Prevent loading profile from network share"
Add-Content -Path $ProfileAdmin -Value "if (`$Profile.CurrentUserCurrentHost -ne $ProfileUserText) {"
Add-Content -Path $ProfileAdmin -Value " `$Profile = $ProfileUserText"
Add-Content -Path $ProfileAdmin -Value " if (Test-Path `"`$Profile`") { . `$Profile }"
Add-Content -Path $ProfileAdmin -Value "}"