{"id":3166,"date":"2013-07-25T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2013\/07\/25\/use-powershell-to-report-and-set-monitor-brightness\/"},"modified":"2013-07-25T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T00:01:00","slug":"use-powershell-to-report-and-set-monitor-brightness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/use-powershell-to-report-and-set-monitor-brightness\/","title":{"rendered":"Use PowerShell to Report and Set Monitor Brightness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to report and set monitor brightness.<\/span>\nMicrosoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Today I was exploring the Root\/WMI namespace in Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on my Windows 8 laptop. I happened to run across a few WMI classes that I had not messed around with before. I like to use the Get-CimClass<\/strong> cmdlet from Windows PowerShell 3.0 for this kind of explorations because it supports tab completion and other features that make this exploration easy.<\/p>\n

Look for WMI classes related to monitor brightness<\/h2>\n

So I was initially looking for anything related to monitors. And as I looked at what scrolled by, I saw that there were classes related to monitor brightness. So I decided to modify my query a bit to include things related to monitor brightness. I derived the following command, and achieved the results shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> Get-CimClass -Namespace root\/WMI -ClassName *monitorbrightness*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

   NameSpace: ROOT\/wmi<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CimClassName                        CimClassMethods      CimClassProperties<\/p>\n

————                        —————      ——————<\/p>\n

WmiMonitorBrightnessEvent           {}                   {SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR, TI…<\/p>\n

WmiMonitorBrightness                {}                   {Active, CurrentBrightne…<\/p>\n

WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods         {WmiSetBrightness… {Active, InstanceName}\nI thought I would try to query the WmiMonitorBrightness<\/strong> WMI class first because it looks like it would report first. So I edited my previous line and changed from Get-CimClass<\/strong> to Get-CimInstance<\/strong>. Here is the command, and the output associated with the command:<\/p>\n

PS C:> Get-Ciminstance -Namespace root\/WMI -ClassName WmiMonitorBrightness<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Active            : True<\/p>\n

CurrentBrightness : 100<\/p>\n

InstanceName      : DISPLAYLEN40B24&3062e51&0&UID67568640_0<\/p>\n

Level             : {0, 1, 2, 3…}<\/p>\n

Levels            : 101<\/p>\n

PSComputerName    :\nSo without any reference material, I can see that the current brightness of my laptop monitor is 100. This is probably a percentage setting. I connect to MSDN, and look up WmiMonitorBrightness class<\/a>. Sure enough it is the current brightness of the monitor as a percentage. The Level<\/strong> property lists supported values for CurrentBrightness<\/strong>. I check it by piping the results to the Select-Object<\/strong> cmdlet. Here is a sample of the output:<\/p>\n

PS C:> Get-Ciminstance -Namespace root\/WMI -ClassName WmiMonitorBrightness | select<\/p>\n

-ExpandProperty level<\/p>\n

0<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

<truncated>\nThe strange thing is that Level<\/strong> lists how many different levels are available. The value of 101 makes sense because Level<\/strong> begins with 0 and ends with 100.<\/p>\n

Set the brightness<\/h2>\n

To set the brightness on my laptop display monitor, I figure I can use the WmiMonitorBrightNessMethods <\/strong>WMI class. While I have MSDN open, I check out WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods class<\/a>, and it appears that I will be able to use it to set my monitor brightness:<\/p>\n

PS C:> Get-CimClass -Namespace root\/WMI -ClassName WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods<\/p>\n

   NameSpace: ROOT\/WMI<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CimClassName                        CimClassMethods      CimClassProperties<\/p>\n

————                        —————      ——————<\/p>\n

WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods         {WmiSetBrightness… {Active, InstanceName}\nThere are only two properties: <\/span>Active<\/strong> and <\/span>InstanceName<\/strong>. I decide to look at them. Here is the result:<\/span><\/p>\n

PS C:> Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\/WMI -ClassName WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods\n                      Active InstanceName                PSComputerName\n                      —— ————                ————–\n                        True DISPLAYLEN40B24&3062e5…<\/p>\n

Examine the WMI class methods<\/h2>\n

So, the WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods <\/strong>WMI class looks like it might be useful. Now, I want to look at the method information in more detail:<\/p>\n

PS C:> $wmi.CimClassMethods<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name                            ReturnType Parameters           Qualifiers<\/p>\n

—-                            ———- ———-           ———-<\/p>\n

WmiSetBrightness                   Boolean {Brightness, Time… {Implemented, Wmi…<\/p>\n

WmiRevertToPolicyB…              Boolean {}                   {Implemented, Wmi…<\/p>\n

WmiSetALSBrightnes…              Boolean {State}              {Implemented, Wmi…<\/p>\n

WmiSetALSBrightness                Boolean {Brightness}         {Implemented, Wmi…\nI see that there are four methods for the WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods<\/strong> class. The method that looks like it is the best one for my needs is the WmiSetBrightness<\/strong> method. It takes two parameters that I want to look at in more detail. So I adjust my query to focus on it. I use the Item<\/strong> method to specify which method I want to look at. The command is shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> $wmi.CimClassMethods.Item(‘wmiSetBrightness’)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name                            ReturnType Parameters           Qualifiers<\/p>\n

—-                            ———- ———-           ———-<\/p>\n

WmiSetBrightness                   Boolean {Brightness, Time… {Implemented, Wmi…\nBut the parameters information is still truncated. So I add Parameters<\/strong> to the end of my query and arrive at the following:<\/p>\n

PS C:> $wmi.CimClassMethods.Item(‘wmiSetBrightness’).parameters<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name                               CimType Qualifiers           ReferenceClassName<\/p>\n

—-                               ——- ———-           ——————<\/p>\n

Brightness                           UInt8 {ID, in}<\/p>\n

Timeout                             UInt32 {ID, in}\nCool. Now I know the two parameters that I need to use to call this method. Brightness<\/strong> is expressed as a percentage, and Timeout<\/strong> is expressed in seconds.\nI use the Get-WmiObject<\/strong> cmdlet to query the WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods<\/strong> WMI class, and store the returned object in a variable as shown here:<\/p>\n

$monitor = Get-WmiObject -ns root\/wmi -class wmiMonitorBrightNessMethods\nNow, I call the WmiSetBrightNess<\/strong> method and specify that I want the monitor to be at 80% and request that it do so in 10 seconds. Here is the command:<\/p>\n

$monitor.WmiSetBrightness(80,10)\nCool! It works. Not sure how I will use this, but it does work.\nWell, that is all there is to using the WMI classes to set monitor brightness. Join me tomorrow when I will talk about more cool Windows PowerShell stuff.\nI invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.\nEd Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to report and set monitor brightness. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Today I was exploring the Root\/WMI namespace in Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on my Windows 8 laptop. I happened to run across a few WMI classes that I had not messed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[378,34,3,4,45,6],"class_list":["post-3166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-desktop","tag-hardware","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-windows-powershell","tag-wmi"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to report and set monitor brightness. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Today I was exploring the Root\/WMI namespace in Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on my Windows 8 laptop. I happened to run across a few WMI classes that I had not messed […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}