SQL Server – Windows Environment Variables and Powershell

Powershell allows you to access the Windows Environment Variables. This is very useful in collecting system information . I’ve applied this technique in  creating an inventory report or troubleshooting a server issue. The purpose of Environment variables is to set values  at the OS level – that will impact processes. Accessing and reporting on the variables quickly can assist in maintaining server uptime.

A straightforward way of accessing all the environment variables is to use  “Dir env:\”  . A full list of environment variables will appear.  Although the full list appears , it requires some string manipulation to isolate one variable and value. Powershell allows you to access the individual Environment variables .

When scripting , there is a requirement to access the environment variables individually. To access individually use  $env  followed by the Windows Environment variable . The example includes the common Environment Variables, although use     “Dir env:\” to view the full list of variables

$env:COMPUTERNAME
$env:NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS
$env:OS
$env:PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE
$env:PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER
$env:PROCESSOR_LEVEL
$env:PROCESSOR_REVISION
$env:SystemDrive
$env:SystemRoot
$env:USERDNSDOMAIN
$env:USERDOMAIN
$env:USERNAME
$env:USERPROFILE
$env:LOGONSERVER
$env:HOMEDRIVE
$env:SESSIONNAME
$env:windir

 Related Posts

Powershell Scripts for DBA

Powershell - run script on all sql servers

SQL Server Database Size and Free Disk Space Daily Report