Checking 32bit PowerShell Snapins from 64bit PowerShell

In PowerShell you use Get-PSSnapin to view available third-party snapins for PowerShell on your system. However, some snapins may ship versions in 64bit, 32bit or both. If you install a 32bit snapin on a 64bit machine and then run Get-PSSnapin from 64bit PowerShell, only 64bit snapins will be displayed – which can lead to some initial confusion.

Consider the following example of two 32bit snapins installed on a 64bit machine. 64bit PowerShell has no knowledge of them, but 32bit does.

Get-PSSnapin -Registered

If you want to check for 32bit snapins from 64bit PowerShell you can get round it by doing this, essentially calling 32bit PowerShell from 64bit:

& "$env:Windir\SysWOW64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -command {Get-PSSnapin -Registered}

Or you could use this simple function to check both 64bit and 32bit:

function Get-AllPSSnapin {
$64bitsnapins = Get-PSSnapin -Registered
$32bitsnapins =  & "$env:Windir\SysWOW64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -command {Get-PSSnapin -Registered}
$64bitsnapins + $32bitsnapins
}