Playing sounds in PowerShell

 

You can play sounds in PowerShell in different ways and integrate them in your scripts to provide some kind of indication. One way is with write-host. You can pass the escape sequence `a  to write host. `a is the Alert corresponding special character:

# play a screech sound (through the internal speaker, not useful on laptops)

write-host "`a";

 

Another way is with a .NET class (.wav format).

# play the file once
$sound = new-Object System.Media.SoundPlayer;
$sound.SoundLocation="c:\WINDOWS\Media\notify.wav";
$sound.Play();

Note that the following process is asynchronously, meaning that the script wont hang until sound has finished playing. This example plays the file repeatedly until a condition met

$sound = new-Object System.Media.SoundPlayer;
$sound.SoundLocation="c:\WINDOWS\Media\notify.wav";
$sound.PlayLooping();
$flag=$false;

1..10 | foreach {
    if($_ -gt 5){$flag=$true} else{sleep -s 1}
    if($flag) { $sound.Stop() }
}

write-host "Done";

There is another class called System.Media.SystemSounds. Pipe the class to get-member to reflect its static members:

 

PS C:\Scripts> [System.Media.SystemSounds] | gm -static

   TypeName: System.Media.SystemSounds

Name            MemberType  Definition
----               ----------         ----------
(...)
Asterisk        Property         static System.Media.SystemSound Asterisk {get;}
Beep             Property         static System.Media.SystemSound Beep {get;}
Exclamation  Property         static System.Media.SystemSound Exclamation {get;}
Hand            Property         static System.Media.SystemSound Hand {get;}
Question       Property         static System.Media.SystemSound Question {get;}

 

Each property emitted represents a system sound type. Now, Pipe each property to get-member

 

PS C:\Scripts> [System.Media.SystemSounds]::Asterisk | gm

   TypeName: System.Media.SystemSound

Name         MemberType   Definition
----            ----------         ----------
(...)
Play           Method           System.Void Play()
ToString    Method           System.String ToString()

 

Great, we can use the Play method,test each line in your console:

[System.Media.SystemSounds]::Asterisk.Play();
[System.Media.SystemSounds]::Beep.Play();
[System.Media.SystemSounds]::Exclamation.Play();
[System.Media.SystemSounds]::Hand.Play();
[System.Media.SystemSounds]::Question.Play();

 

Finally, here is a one-liner for the job. It Utilizes the SoundPlayer(String) Constructor. It Initializes a new instance of the SoundPlayer class, and attaches the specified .wav file.

(new-object Media.SoundPlayer "C:\WINDOWS\Media\notify.wav").play();