Using Progress Bars within the Powershell Console
Progress bars can be a nice visual indicator as to how a far a task is into its workload. Windows Powershell provides us with the ability to create these within the console fairly easily.
This simple code will demonstrate the basics of the Write-Progress cmdlet, which allows us to deploy progress bars in our scripts.
for($i = 0; $i -le 100; $i++) { Write-Progress -Activity "Activity" -PercentComplete $i -Status "Processing"; Sleep -Milliseconds 100; } |
It’s possible to spawn multiple progress bars within the Console. This may be handy for displaying the advance of child tasks. Here’s a simple example.
for($i = 0; $i -le 100; $i++) { Write-Progress -Activity "Parent Task $i" -PercentComplete $i -Status "Processing" -Id 1; Sleep -Milliseconds 100; # Spawn a child Progress bar specify a different Id for($x = 0; $x -le 10; $x++) { Write-Progress -Activity "Child Task $x" -PercentComplete ($x * 10) -Status "Processing" -Id 2; Sleep -Milliseconds 30; } } |
To show a practical example, I’ve enhanced a script from a previous post; Check disk space with Powershell to use some of the code showcased here (check this for setup instructions). Enjoy!
# Issue warning if % free disk space is less $percentWarning = 15; # Get server list $servers = Get-Content "$Env:USERPROFILE\serverlist.txt"; $datetime = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMddHHmmss"; # Add headers to log file Add-Content "$Env:USERPROFILE\server disks $datetime.txt" "server,deviceID,size,freespace,percentFree"; # How many servers $server_count = $servers.Length; # processed server count $i = 0; foreach($server in $servers) { $server_progress = [int][Math]::Ceiling((($i / $server_count) * 100)) # Parent progress bar Write-Progress -Activity "Checking $server" -PercentComplete $server_progress -Status "Processing servers - $server_progress%" -Id 1; Sleep(1); # Sleeping just for progress bar demo # Get fixed drive info $disks = Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $server -Class Win32_LogicalDisk -Filter "DriveType = 3"; # How many disks are there? $disk_count = $disks.Length; $x = 0; foreach($disk in $disks) { $disk_progress = [int][Math]::Ceiling((($x / $disk_count) * 100)); $disk_name = $disk.Name; Write-Progress -Activity "Checking disk $disk_name" -PercentComplete $disk_progress -Status "Processing server disks - $disk_progress%" -Id 2; Sleep(1); $deviceID = $disk.DeviceID; [float]$size = $disk.Size; [float]$freespace = $disk.FreeSpace; $percentFree = [Math]::Round(($freespace / $size) * 100, 2); $sizeGB = [Math]::Round($size / 1073741824, 2); $freeSpaceGB = [Math]::Round($freespace / 1073741824, 2); $colour = "Green"; if($percentFree-lt $percentWarning) { $colour = "Red"; } Write-Host -ForegroundColor $colour "$server $deviceID percentage free space = $percentFree"; Add-Content "$Env:USERPROFILE\server disks $datetime.txt" "$server,$deviceID,$sizeGB,$freeSpaceGB,$percentFree"; $x++; } # Finish off the progress bar Write-Progress -Activity "Finshed checking disks for this server" -PercentComplete 100 -Status "Done - 100%" -Id 2; Sleep(1); # Just so we see! $i++; } Write-Progress -Activity "Checked all servers" -PercentComplete 100 -Status "Done - 100%" -Id 1; Sleep(1); |
