Can I install Powershell 4 side by side with Powershell 3?

Question

I have Powershell 3 installed on my box.

I need to test some scripts with Powershell 4 but I want to continue to run some of my scripts that are tested under Powershell 3 and I do not want to break something by installing Powershell 4.

QUESTION:Is it possible to open a Powershell sessions under Powershell version 3 (or even 2 if needed) despite I have installed Powershell 4?

Answer 1

When you have the Windows Management Framework Core 4.0 package installed, you can run PowerShell version 2.0, but not 3.0. Use the -version 2.0 parameter to launch PowerShell v2.

See this TechNet article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh847899.aspx

Also see the help about_powershell.exe help documentation: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj553275.aspx

Answer 2

Yes. Starting with V3, you could open a powershell session for a downlevel version using the -Version parameter.

-Version
    Starts the specified version of Windows PowerShell.
    Enter a version number with the parameter, such as "-version 2.0".

So running

Powershell.exe -Version 2 

will start a session that can be used to run/test a V2 script.