Using Powershell to generate new Guids

Guids, or Globally Unique Identifiers, are often used by developers and others to attribute a unique id to an arbitrary object. For example, those who have used WiX to create MSI-based installers, often need to create a new GUID all the time while writing the WiX code for the installer. Wouldn't it be great to use a Powershell command line to just generate new GUIDs? Here is a sample script how to do this:

            
<#
    .SYNOPSIS
        Creates a new Guid object and displays its GUI to the screen
    .DESCRIPTION
        Uses static System.Guid.NewGuid() method to create a new Guid object
    .EXAMPLE
        1. Create a new Guid is easy:
        New-Guid
#>            
function New-Guid () {            
            
 [System.Guid] $guidObject = [System.Guid]::NewGuid()            
 [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::Clear();            
 [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::SetText($guidObject.Guid)            
 Write-Host $guidObject.Guid            
            
}            
            
New-Guid

To call the function New-Guid just type its name. You will get new GUIDs without a hassle:

PS C:\users\Tore Aurstad> New-Guid
0d2cc38f-e6de-4049-ae6a-f168bf1ea670

PS C:\users\Tore Aurstad> New-Guid
f99044b3-a8a6-4092-a520-c58ae259a19e

PS C:\users\Tore Aurstad> New-Guid
4de11003-8bbf-4415-8fe3-e7ecf4be9ee0

PS C:\users\Tore Aurstad> New-Guid
cac473e7-1f01-4d2f-b99c-4fdb25ab9da1

PS C:\users\Tore Aurstad> 

Of course, this is very similar to creating a Console application with C#, we just call the static method NewGuid on the Guid class. In Powershell, variables can be strongly typed as shown here and to call a static method you just write [MyNamespace.MyClass]::MyStaticMethod. Note the double colon marks in the middle.

In addition to generating a new Guid, the clipboard contents is set to the Guid value, which means you can paste in the text where you want. I did not have to import any additional modules to reach the static function [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::Clear() and [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::SetText().

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