Setup VMware PowerCLI environment using offline modules

From a past few version VMware has stopped shipping an installer for PowerCLI. The latest builds of PowerCLI run as modules within PowerShell environment.

Download Location:

Download the latest versions of  VMware PowerCLI offline modules  from VMware site. https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/11.2.0/vmware-powercli

The offline modules are distributed as a zip file

Prepare the Environment(Per user): 

Open command prompt and run:

echo %userprofile%. This will print the location of the user profile (currently logged in user) on the system

mkdir %userprofile%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

Extract the zip file

Copy all the contents extracted  to %userprofile%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

Open PowerShell or PowerShell ISE and execute

Get-Module -ListAvailable | Select-String vmware | Import-Module

You may start using the PowerCLI commands now. Going forward all PowerShell session for the user will have these modules loaded

Prepare the Environment(Per system):

If you want these modules to be available for all users present on the system copy the contents of extracted zip to

C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

Or

C:\windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules

You can also keep these modules at a custom location by modifying the “PSModulePath” environment variable