PowerTip: Use PowerShell to Discover Laptop Webcam

Doctor Scripto

Summary: Use Windows PowerShell to discover a webcam attached to your laptop.

 How can I use Windows PowerShell to find a webcam or camera that is attached to my laptop?

 Use the Get-CimInstance or the Get-WmiObject cmdlet, examine the Win32_PnpEntity WMI class,
          and look for something that matches camera in the caption.

By using Get-CimInstance in Windows PowerShell 3.0 or later:

Get-CimInstance Win32_PnPEntity | where caption -match 'camera'

By using Get-WmiObject in Windows PowerShell 2.0:

Get-WmiObject Win32_PnPEntity | where {$_.caption -match 'camera'}

Note  Not all webcams populate exactly the same way, so it may take a bit of searching
to find the right string.

Doctor Scripto Scripter, PowerShell, vbScript, BAT, CMD

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