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Is it possible to generate a Universal Unique Identifier or Global Unique Identifier (UUID or GUID) in a Windows shell script? Linux / Unix / Mac OS X have the bin utility uuidgen and I'm curious if Windows has an equivalent. Thanks!

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2 Answers

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There is an eponymous Windows port of uuidgen available with Visual Studio.

Documentation is here and here.

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Thanks for the answer! I don't have a copy of Visual Studio. Do you know if a universal binary is available for this? Thanks! – Kevin Sylvestre Dec 24 '10 at 1:09
Visual Studio Express Edition is free and can be downloaded from Microsoft. You could then pull out the specific files you need. – nhinkle♦ Dec 24 '10 at 1:15
Sorry for all the questions (I don't use Windows as my main OS). Will I be able to package the identifier such that users downloading my script won't require installation of Visual Studio? If not it isn't really an option. Thanks! – Kevin Sylvestre Dec 24 '10 at 1:25
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up vote 4 down vote

If you're using PowerShell it's very easy:

Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

PS C:\Users\Jeff> $guid = [guid]::NewGuid()
PS C:\Users\Jeff> $guid

Guid
----
fe2858b1-2b70-4b2b-994d-3ff22f85244e
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Cool, thanks Jeff! – Kevin Sylvestre Dec 25 '10 at 14:24
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