ISESteroids is an extension specifically to the ISE editor. You can launch it only from within the ISE application. It will not load within the PowerShell Console or VSCode.
Launching
To run ISESteroids, open the ISE editor, then run:
Start-Steroids
Alternatively, you can import the module ISESteroids. This gives you the extra option of specifying from where you would like to load ISESteroids. Simply specify the path to the ISESteroids folder you want to load, for example:
Import-Module -Name d:\tools\ISESteroids
This way, you can keep ISESteroids as a portable app on a USB stick. ISESteroids will still save all preferences and user options on the hard drive:
explorer $env:appdata\ISESteroids
First Start
When you start ISESteroids for the first time, a license dialog opens. You can use ISESteroids for 10 separate testing days. During trial, there are no feature restrictions. Testing days are not consecutive, so you can test for 10 separate days over the next 6 months.
While ISESteroids launches and tweaks more controls, features, and buttons into the ISE user interface, the window blurs.
ISESteroids greets you with your username. If you’d like to use a different name, run this:
"PowerShell Guru" | Out-File -FilePath $env:appdata\ISESteroids\username.txt
Status Bar
After loading is complete, ISESteroids displays the path from where it was loaded in the bottom status bar. Click the link if you want to open the folder in Windows Explorer. This way you can easily check whether ISESteroids was loaded from the intended folder - in case you installed multiple versions in multiple locations.
Later, the status bar shows your license status and helpful information. Right after launch, the console window shows the version number. You can check the ISESteroids version anytime via Get-SteroidsVersion. To check whether you are using the latest version, open menu Help and choose Check for ISESteroids Updates.