Use Powershell 4 to check file signatures/hashes

I wasted a couple of DVDs this morning trying to burn a corrupted download of SQL Server from MSDN. Finally the light dawned and I decided to check the file hash. MSDN subscriber downloads have the SHA1 hash on the download page. I didn’t have my usual checker installed yet on my new laptop, and in googling I discovered that Powershell 4 can now do this natively!

The command you need is Get-FileHash – MSDN uses SHA1 rather than the default SHA256 of this command so the following will do it:

Get-FileHash <filepath> -Algorithm SHA1

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