For reference:

• Issue: Save pure string text to file with redirection or Out-File unexpectedly strip off VT sequences from the original text #17452
• PR that fixed the issue: Make Out-String and Out-File keep string input unchanged #17455

Context summary

The previous behavior in 7.2.x is: Out-File and Out-String remove escape sequences from the passed-in strings when $PSStyle.OutputRendering is Host or PlainText.

There are some problems with this behavior, especially when having Host to be the default value for $PSStyle.OutputRendering. See #17455 (comment) for the details of those problems.

Therefore, that behavior was changed by #17455 to be:

• when the input object is pure string, these 2 cmdlets keep the string input unchanged regardless of the RenderingOutput setting
• when the input object needs to have formatting views applied to it, these 2 cmdlets remove escape sequences from the formatting output strings based on the RenderingOutput setting, which is the same as the existing behavior.

Recommendation from PowerShell Committee

The committee reviewed #17455 and recommended to add a new parameter to Out-String and Out-File to keep the previous behavior. Quote the comments #17455 (review) and #17455 (comment) below:

I think we should seriously consider adding a parameter to out-string and out-file which retains our current behavior. Perhaps a parameter -AsPlainText or some such will allow users to have the older behavior while we provide a safer default behavior.

powershell-committee reviewed this, we would recommend adding a parameter to enable users to get back the previous behavior.