PowerShell Manage Windows Features and Roles
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PowerShell Manage Windows Features and Roles

PowerShell Tips Editor 3 min read
PowerShell Manage Windows Features and Roles

Server Core deployments, automated provisioning pipelines, and configuration management systems all require scripted role and feature installation — there is no GUI to click through. Understanding PowerShell windows features management lets you install IIS, .NET Framework, failover clustering, or any Windows Server role in a single command, repeat the deployment identically across dozens of servers, and capture the full configuration as code. This post covers listing, installing, and removing features on both Server and desktop Windows editions.

List Available Windows Features

On Windows Server, Get-WindowsFeature lists every available role and feature with its installation state. On Windows desktop editions, use Get-WindowsOptionalFeature via the DISM module instead:

# Windows Server — lists all roles and features
Get-WindowsFeature | Where-Object Installed -eq $true | Select-Object Name, DisplayName

# Show all available features (installed and not)
Get-WindowsFeature | Format-Table Name, DisplayName, Installed, InstallState -AutoSize

# Windows 10/11 — use DISM
Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online | Where-Object State -eq Enabled | Select-Object FeatureName

Name                   DisplayName                        Installed  InstallState
----                   -----------                        ---------  ------------
Web-Server             Web Server (IIS)                   True       Installed
NET-Framework-45-Core  .NET Framework 4.5                 True       Installed
Hyper-V                Hyper-V                            False      Available

Install a Windows Feature

Install-WindowsFeature installs a role or feature by name. Use -IncludeManagementTools to also install the associated management PowerShell module and GUI snap-in:

$result = Install-WindowsFeature -Name 'RSAT-AD-Tools' -IncludeManagementTools

if ($result.Success) {
    Write-Host "Installed successfully. Restart required: $($result.RestartNeeded)"
} else {
    Write-Warning "Installation failed: $($result.FeatureResult)"
}

Installed successfully. Restart required: No

Install Web Server (IIS) Role

IIS installation with common sub-features needed for ASP.NET web applications:

$iisFeatures = @(
    'Web-Server',
    'Web-Common-Http',
    'Web-Default-Doc',
    'Web-Dir-Browsing',
    'Web-Http-Errors',
    'Web-Static-Content',
    'Web-Asp-Net45',
    'Web-Mgmt-Console'
)

$result = Install-WindowsFeature -Name $iisFeatures -IncludeManagementTools

Write-Host "Success: $($result.Success)"
Write-Host "Restart needed: $($result.RestartNeeded)"
if ($result.RestartNeeded -eq 'Yes') {
    Write-Warning "A restart is required to complete IIS installation"
}

Remove a Windows Feature

Remove-WindowsFeature uninstalls a role or feature and its sub-features. The -Remove switch also deletes the feature’s payload files from disk, reducing the footprint but preventing future installation without access to installation media:

# Uninstall but keep payload (can reinstall without media)
Remove-WindowsFeature -Name 'Telnet-Client'

# Remove payload from disk permanently
Remove-WindowsFeature -Name 'Telnet-Client' -Remove

# Confirm what would be removed without making changes
Remove-WindowsFeature -Name 'Web-Server' -WhatIf

Desktop Features with DISM

On Windows 10 and 11, use Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature and Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature from the DISM module. These require an elevated session:

# Enable Telnet Client on Windows desktop
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName 'TelnetClient' -NoRestart

# Enable Windows Subsystem for Linux
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName 'Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux' -NoRestart

# Disable a feature
Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName 'TelnetClient' -NoRestart

# Check state
(Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName 'TelnetClient').State

Install Multiple Features from List

Read a feature list from a text file and install them all, then capture the results for auditing:

$featureList = Get-Content "C:\Config\required-features.txt"
$timestamp   = Get-Date -Format 'yyyyMMdd_HHmmss'
$logFile     = "C:\Logs\feature-install_$timestamp.log"

$results = Install-WindowsFeature -Name $featureList -IncludeManagementTools -LogPath $logFile

$results.FeatureResult | Select-Object Name, Message, RestartNeeded |
    Export-Csv "C:\Reports\feature-install-results.csv" -NoTypeInformation

Write-Host "Install log: $logFile"
Write-Host "Overall success: $($results.Success)"

Common Errors and Fixes

  • Install-WindowsFeature only on Server — use DISM on desktop. Install-WindowsFeature is provided by the ServerManager module, which only exists on Windows Server. On Windows 10/11, you will get a “cmdlet not found” error. Use Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online instead.
  • Restart required after some feature installs. The return object from Install-WindowsFeature has a RestartNeeded property. Check it and restart with Restart-Computer -Force if required. Some features do not become active until after a reboot.

Related Cmdlets / See Also

Wrapping Up

Use Get-WindowsFeature and Install-WindowsFeature on Windows Server, and the DISM *-WindowsOptionalFeature cmdlets on desktop Windows. Always check the RestartNeeded result property and include -IncludeManagementTools when installing server roles to also get the PowerShell management modules.

#install-windowsfeature#roles#server#windows-features
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