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Unlocking the Power of PowerShell: Tips for Success

PowerShell hacks: Disable annoying confirmation prompts

Tobias & Aleksandar's tip:

Tweak your PowerShell scripts with essential preference variables! Use $ConfirmPreference = 'None' instead of ‑Confirm:$false. Disable confirmation dialogs for smooth, unattended execution. Customise your PowerShell environment to suit your needs and increase efficiency!

 

Hiding confirmations

Occasionally, in scripts you see parameters like ‑Confirm:$false. This is explicitly setting a switch parameter to $false, typically in an effort to hide confirmation dialogs and enable a script to run unattended.

Any confirmation dialog that would be suppressible by this parameter can also be turned off on a script-global scope, simply by adding this to the start of the script:

  • $ConfirmPreference = 'None'
    $ConfirmPreference = 'None'


Likewise, if cmdlets show progress bars that you don’t want to see (i.e. to speed up execution time), simply turn them off:

  • $ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'
    $ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'


The "preference" set of variables generally enables you to tailor the PowerShell environment to your need:

  • PS C:\> Get-Variable -Name *preference
    PS C:\> Get-Variable -Name *preference

 

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