How to get Powershell execution policy externally

Question

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?

On the servers where the value appears to be "missing," are the OS' different, or are running a different architecture (x64 vs x86), possibly? For those that are missing, see if you find a hive/key pair here: HKLM\software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell\ExecutionPolicy — gravity
It might not be in the registry. Then it would use a default one. — js2010

ArcSet ArcSet · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-08T14:50:03

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

How to get Powershell execution policy externally

1 Answers