Can I write PowerShell history to a text file on PowerShell exit?

Question

I am curious to know if we can do this in Powershell.

with Out-File command we can pipe it to get output written to a file. That way I can send all my history commands to a text file.

The Question is Can I send my history commands to a text file every time I exit?
I don't know if this would be of big help but sometimes if you wrote some one liners and you quit the PS console accidentally then all the history commands will be saved to a text file just like recent chat conversations.

Take a look here: social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverpowershell/… it seems to be an hard mission to catch the console closed by clicking on 'x' — CB.
– CB., Commented Feb 16, 2012 at 14:06

CB. · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-16 14:10:00Z

5

You can use start-transcript -path .\console.txt -append in you $profile to have in a txt file all console actions, not just the History but the returns of the commands too.

answered Feb 16, 2012 at 14:10

CB.

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4 Comments

Mitul Over a year ago

That really sounds interesting. I did a Get-Help and it says, "Creates a record of all or party of a Windows PS session in a text file".

CB. Over a year ago

Yes! I use this command in my $profile for the same reasons in your question!

EBGreen Over a year ago

I don't anymore, but putting this in my profile was a huge help when I started learning PS.

Andy Arismendi Over a year ago

One thing to note about Start-Transcript is that it doesn't capture output of external executables which write directly to the shell. In order to capture output from those you'll need to force stdout through the PowerShell host output API like this ping.exe localhost 2>&1 | out-host.

mjolinor · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-16 15:13:44Z

2

Another possibility:

function start-histcap {
clear-history
$host.enternestedprompt()
get-history | out-file c:\testfiles\commandhist.txt -append
}

Run start-histcap, and you'll be at a nested prompt. Whatever you do there will get written to the history file when you exit that nested prompt.

answered Feb 16, 2012 at 15:13

mjolinor

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Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:23:10Z

1

Its hard to always catch an "exit". you can register for the onexit event but the problem is that will ONLY catch when a user types "exit" not if they hit the X or close in any other way..

Powershell profile "on exit" event?

so in the action event you just do get-history (specify a number if you need more than the default 100) and then set-content to a file...

you might be better off using Start-Transcript, but that only works in Console..

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:23

CommunityBot

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answered Feb 16, 2012 at 14:08

jrich523

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1 Comment

x0n Over a year ago

the powershell.exiting event is almost useless. any script you hook into will fail randomly as the runspace is actually shutting down asynchronously when this event occurs. a classic race condition.

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