How do I add timestamps to individual lines of PowerShell & output?

Question

How, if at all, is it possible to add timestamps to each line of an output generated by the & PowerShell operator?

Example:

PS H:\\&         


        

Answer 1

You could use the Start-Transcript cmdlet in combination with a custom prompt in your profile:

# Configure PS prompt to show date and time
function prompt
{ 
    $promptStringStart = "PS:" + (Get-Date -format MM/dd/yy` hh:mm:ss)
    $promptStringEnd += ">"
    Write-Host $promptStringStart -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Write-Host $promptStringEnd -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Yellow
    return " "
}

This works great on my Windows 7 workstation. However, on some newer Server 2012 R2 installations Start-Transcript seems to be slightly broken. This fixes part of it: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3014136/powershell-transcript-file-doesn-t-contain-the-correct-information-in-windows-server-2012-r2

... but it does not fix the issue with the custom prompt, still.

For example, I see this on the console:

PS:02/14/17 08:28:20> hostname
server463

And this is what's written to the log:

PS:02/14/17 08:28:20
>

PS>hostname
server463