powershellexecutionpolicy

How to get Powershell execution policy externally

I need to find out the powershell (versions 4 and 5+) execution policy without using powershell itself

I tried to look into registry - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell

I found ExecutionPolicy value in two keys, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\ScriptedDiagnostics

The first one corresponded to the policy given by executing Get-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet, but on some servers in our environment the value is missing. Is there any other, 100% reliable, way to check the policy without using Powershell itself?

Solution

  • No key would equal Undefined

    If the execution policy in all scopes is Undefined, the effective execution policy is Restricted, which is the default execution policy.

    x64

    Current User

    HKCU\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell : ExecutionPolicy

    Local Machine

    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell : ExecutionPolicy

    x86

    Local Machine

    HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell : ExecutionPolicy

    Machine Policy

    HKLM\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell : ExecutionPolicy

    User Policy

    HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell : ExecutionPolicy