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
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}}
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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