How do I get the value of a registry key and ONLY the value using powershell

Question

Can anyone help me pull the value of a registry key and place it into a variable in PowerShell   So far I have used Get-ItemProperty and reg query and although both will pull the value  both also add extra text   I need just the string text from the registry key and ONLY the string text from the key   I m sure I could create a function to strip off the extra text but if something changes  i e  reg key name  it might affect this

User · Answer

Well you need to be specific here  As far as I know  the key in a registry is a  folder  of properties  So did you mean get the value of a property  If so  try something like this    Get-ItemProperty HKLM  Software Microsoft PowerShell 1 PowerShellEngine -Name PowerShellVersion  PowerShellVersion   First we get an object containing the property we need with Get-ItemProperty and then we get the value of for the property we need from that object  That will return the value of the property as a string  The example above gives you the PS version for  legacy  compatibility-mdoe powershell  1 0 or 2 0

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Not sure at what version this capability arrived  but you can use something like this to return all the properties of multiple child registry entries in an array    InstalledSoftware   Get-ChildItem  HKLM  SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Uninstall    ForEach-Object  Get-ItemProperty  Registry         Only adding this as Google brought me here for a relevant reason and I eventually came up with the above one-liner for dredging the registry

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key    HKLM  SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion   Get-ItemProperty -Path  key -Name ProgramFilesDir  ProgramFilesDir   I ve never liked how this was provider was implemented like this      Basically  it makes every registry value a PSCustomObject object with PsPath  PsParentPath  PsChildname  PSDrive and PSProvider properties and then a property for its actual value  So even though you asked for the item by name  to get its value you have to use the name once more

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If you create an object  you get a more readable output and also gain an object with properties you can access    path    HKLM  SOFTWARE Wow6432Node Microsoft  NETFramework   obj    New-Object -TypeName psobject  Get-Item -Path  path   Select-Object -ExpandProperty Property   Sort        command    String   Format   Get-ItemProperty -Path   0   -Name   1      1      path       value   Invoke-Expression -Command  command  obj   Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name    -Value  value   Write-Output  obj   fl   Sample output  InstallRoot     C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework   And the object    obj InstallRoot   C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework   The truth of the matter is this is way more complicated than it needs to be  Here is a much better example  and much simpler    path    HKLM  SOFTWARE Wow6432Node Microsoft  NETFramework   objReg   Get-ItemProperty -Path  path   Select -Property      objReg is now a custom object where each registry entry is a property name  You can view the formatted list via   write-output  objReg  InstallRoot          C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework  DbgManagedDebugger    C  windows system32 vsjitdebugger exe    And you have access to the object itself    objReg InstallRoot C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework

User · Answer

I m not sure if this has been changed  or if it has something to do with which version of PS you re using  but using Andy s example  I can remove the -Name parameter and I still get the value of the reg item   PS C   gt   key    HKLM  SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion  PS C   gt   Get-ItemProperty -Path  key  ProgramFilesDir C  Program Files   PS C   gt   psversiontable psversion  Major  Minor  Build  Revision -----  -----  -----  -------- 2      0      -1     -1

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Following code will enumerate all values for a certain Registry key  will sort them and will return value name   value pairs separated by colon        path    HKLM  SOFTWARE Wow6432Node Microsoft  NETFramework    Get-Item -Path  path   Select-Object -ExpandProperty Property   Sort            command    String   Format   Get-ItemProperty -Path   0   -Name   1      1      path            value   Invoke-Expression -Command  command                    value       Like this   DbgJITDebugLaunchSetting   16  DbgManagedDebugger    C  Windows system32 vsjitdebugger exe  PID  d APPDOM  d EXTEXT   s  EVTHDL  d  InstallRoot   C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework

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Given a key  SQL with two properties     I d grab the  MSSQLSERVER  one with the following in-cases where I wasn t sure what the property name was going to be to use dot-notation    regkey property name    MSSQLSERVER   regkey   get-item -Path  HKLM  Software Microsoft Microsoft SQL Server Instance Names SQL   regkey GetValue  regkey property name

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NONE of these answers work for situations where the value name contains spaces  dots  or other characters that are reserved in PowerShell  In that case you have to wrap the name in double quotes as per http   blog danskingdom com accessing-powershell-variables-with-periods-in-their-name  - for example   PS gt  Get-ItemProperty Registry  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft VisualStudio SxS VS7  14 0           C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 14 0  12 0           C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 12 0  11 0           C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 11 0  15 0           C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise  PSPath         Microsoft PowerShell Core Registry  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft VisualStudio SxS V                S7 PSParentPath   Microsoft PowerShell Core Registry  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft VisualStudio SxS PSChildName    VS7 PSProvider     Microsoft PowerShell Core Registry   If you want to access any of the 14 0  12 0  11 0  15 0 values  the solution from the accepted answer will not work - you will get no output   PS gt   Get-ItemProperty Registry  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft VisualStudio SxS VS7 -Name 15 0  15 0 PS gt    What does work is quoting the value name  which you should probably be doing anyway for safety   PS gt   Get-ItemProperty  Registry  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft VisualStudio SxS VS7  -Name  15 0    15 0  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise  PS gt     Thus  the accepted answer should be modified as such   PS gt   key    Registry  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft VisualStudio SxS VS7  PS gt   value    15 0  PS gt   Get-ItemProperty -Path  key -Name  value   value C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise  PS gt     This works in PowerShell 2 0 through 5 0  although you should probably be using Get-ItemPropertyValue in v5

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Harry Martyrossian mentions in a comment on his own answer that the Get-ItemPropertyValue cmdlet was introduced in Powershell v5  which solves the problem   PS gt  Get-ItemPropertyValue  HKLM  SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion   ProgramFilesDir  C  Program Files     Alternatives for PowerShell v4-   Here s an attempt to retain the efficiency while eliminating the need for repetition of the value name  which  however  is still a little cumbersome    amp     Get-ItemProperty         -LiteralPath HKLM  SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion         -Name  args          args    ProgramFilesDir    By using a script block  the value name can be passed in once as a parameter  and the parameter variable   args  can then simply be used twice inside the block   Alternatively  a simple helper function can ease the pain   function Get-RegValue  String   KeyPath   String   ValueName       Get-ItemProperty -LiteralPath  KeyPath -Name  ValueName   ValueName       Note  All solutions above bypass the problem described in Ian Kemp s s answer - the need to use explicit quoting for certain value names when used as property names  e g     15 0  - because the value names are passed as parameters and property access happens via a variable  e g     ValueName    As for the other answers    Andy Arismendi s helpful answer explains the annoyance with having to repeat the value name in order to get the value data efficiently  M Jeremy Carter s helpful answer is more convenient  but can be a performance pitfall for keys with a large number of values  because an object with a large number of properties must be constructed

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