Finding Windows Universal Unique Identifier (UUID)

Every Windows installation has a unique UUID that you can use to distinguish machines. While computer names can change, the UUID won’t:

 
PS> (Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_ComputerSystemProduct).UUID
4C4C4544-004C-4710-8051-C4C04F443732 

Universal Unique Identifier (UUID)

In reality, the UUID is just a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier), which comes in different formats:

$uuid = (Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_ComputerSystemProduct).UUID
[Guid]$guid = $uuid

"d","n","p","b","x" |
  ForEach-Object {
    '$guid.ToString("{0}") = {1}' -f $_, $guid.ToString($_)
  }

Here is the result:

 
$guid.ToString("d")= 4c4c4544-004c-4710-8051-c4c04f443732
$guid.ToString("n")= 4c4c4544004c47108051c4c04f443732
$guid.ToString("p")= (4c4c4544-004c-4710-8051-c4c04f443732)
$guid.ToString("b")= {4c4c4544-004c-4710-8051-c4c04f443732}
$guid.ToString("x")= {0x4c4c4544,0x004c,0x4710,{0x80,0x51,0xc4,0xc0,0x4f,0x44,0x37,0x32}} 

Create a New UUID (or GUID)

If you’d like to create a new UUID (or GUID) to get a unique identifier for whatever you like to tag, i.e. temporary file names, the New-Guid cmdlet was introduced in PowerShell 5:

 
PS> New-Guid

Guid                                
----                                
16750457-9a7e-4510-96ab-f9eef7273f3e 

It basically runs this .NET call behind the scenes:

 
PS> [Guid]::NewGuid()

Guid                                
----                                
6cb3cb1a-b094-425b-8ccb-e74c2034884f 

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