Write-Progress

Write-Progress
    [-Activity] <String>
    [[-Status] <String>]
    [[-Id] <Int32>]
    [-PercentComplete <Int32>]
    [-SecondsRemaining <Int32>]
    [-CurrentOperation <String>]
    [-ParentId <Int32>]
    [-Completed]
    [-SourceId <Int32>]
    [<CommonParameters>]

The Write-Progress cmdlet displays a progress bar in a Windows PowerShell command window that depicts the status of a running command or script. You can select the indicators that the bar reflects and the text that appears above and below the progress bar.

for ($i = 1; $i -le 100; $i++ )
{
    Write-Progress -Activity "Search in Progress" -Status "$i% Complete:" -PercentComplete $i;
}

This command displays the progress of a For loop that counts from 1 to 100.

The Write-Progress cmdlet includes a status bar heading Activity, a status line, and the variable $i (the counter in the For loop), which indicates the relative completeness of the task.

for($I = 1; $I -lt 101; $I++ )
{
    Write-Progress -Activity Updating -Status 'Progress->' -PercentComplete $I -CurrentOperation OuterLoop
    for($j = 1; $j -lt 101; $j++ )
    {
        Write-Progress -Id 1 -Activity Updating -Status 'Progress' -PercentComplete $j -CurrentOperation InnerLoop
    }
}

Updating
Progress ->
 [ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo]
OuterLoop
Updating
Progress
 [oooooooooooooooooo                                                   ]
InnerLoop

This example displays the progress of two nested For loops, each of which is represented by a progress bar.

The Write-Progress command for the second progress bar includes the Id parameter that distinguishes it from the first progress bar.

Without the Id parameter, the progress bars would be superimposed on each other instead of being displayed one below the other.

# Use Get-EventLog to get the events in the System log and store them in the $Events variable.
$Events = Get-EventLog -LogName system
# Pipe the events to the ForEach-Object cmdlet.
$Events | ForEach-Object -Begin {
    # In the Begin block, use Clear-Host to clear the screen.
    Clear-Host
    # Set the $i counter variable to zero.
    $i = 0
    # Set the $out variable to a empty string.
    $out = ""
} -Process {
    # In the Process script block search the message property of each incoming object for "bios".
    if($_.message -like "*bios*")
    {
        # Append the matching message to the out variable.
        $out=$out + $_.Message
    }
    # Increment the $i counter variable which is used to create the progress bar.
    $i = $i+1
    # Use Write-Progress to output a progress bar.
    # The Activity and Status parameters create the first and second lines of the progress bar heading, respectively.
    Write-Progress -Activity "Searching Events" -Status "Progress:" -PercentComplete ($i/$Events.count*100)
} -End {
    # Display the matching messages using the out variable.
    $out
}

This command displays the progress of a command to find the string "bios" in the System event log.

The PercentComplete parameter value is calculated by dividing the number of events that have been processed $I by the total number of events retrieved $Events.count and then multiplying that result by 100.

This cmdlet supports the common parameters: -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -InformationAction, -InformationVariable, -OutBuffer, -OutVariable, -PipelineVariable, -ProgressAction, -Verbose, -WarningAction, and -WarningVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters.

You cannot pipe input to this cmdlet.

Write-Progress does not generate any output.

If the progress bar does not appear, check the value of the $ProgressPreference variable. If the value is set to SilentlyContinue, the progress bar is not displayed. For more information about Windows PowerShell preferences, see about_Preference_Variables.

The parameters of the cmdlet correspond to the properties of the System.Management.Automation.ProgressRecord class. For more information, see ProgressRecord Class in the MSDN library.