PowerShell wrong encoding when writing to file

Question

I am making a simple PowerShell script to launch using the Task Scheduler. The script should create a file, launch a .exe-Program and redirect all the output to the newly created file.

This is what my script looks like now:

# script.ps1
$LogFile = "C:\a\very\long\path\to\logfile.log"
C:
cd 'C:\path\to\exe\directory\' > $LogFile
.\program.exe > $LogFile

The program outputs symbols of the German alphabet: Ää Öö Üü ß. When I launch the program without file writing, it output the symbol the way it should: ä, ü. However, when I redirect the output to the log file, ä turns into õ and ü turns into ³.

I tried appending chcp 65001 and $PSDefaultParameterValues = @{ '*:Encoding' = 'utf8' }, but it didn't have any effect.

Funnily enough, this problem happens only in PowerShell. A similar script in Batch doesn't have this problem. Is there a way to fix it in PowerShell?

P. S. My PowerShell version is 5.1

Open your ps1 file using notepad++ and change the encoding type and save it... Should work.. — Ranadip Dutta
– Ranadip Dutta, Commented Jan 31, 2020 at 9:50
The cmdlet Out-File has a parameter -Encoding. Read the help to learn how to use it please. — Olaf
– Olaf, Commented Jan 31, 2020 at 9:51

AdminOfThings · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-31 13:00:37Z

2

From PowerShell, external program (.exe) output encoding is managed by [Console]::OutputEncoding. If you want UTF8, then that property needs to have a UTF8 encoding.

$BackupEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding
[Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8
.\program.exe > $LogFile
[Console]::OutputEncoding = $BackupEncoding

Note: The above solution is UTF8 with BOM. In PowerShell Core 6.2+ and PowerShell 7, UTF8 with no BOM is the default encoding in these cases.

answered Jan 31, 2020 at 13:00

AdminOfThings

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