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How To Display Toast Notifications With PowerShells BurntToast Module

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36 views

How To Display Toast Notifications With PowerShells BurntToast Module

Uploaded by

fabio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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How to display toast notifications with PowerShell's

BurntToast module
pdq.com/blog/display-toast-notifications-with-powershell-burnt-toast-module

Andrew Pla

You know those fancy popups that appear in the bottom corner of your computer screen?
Those are called toast notifications. Have you ever wondered if there’s a way to create
your own customized toast notification? Perhaps you wrote a script that you want a
notification for upon completion. Do your users forget to reboot their machines, and you
want to send them a reminder? Fret not, my friend — there is hope.

BurntToast PowerShell module


Luckily for us, there’s a PowerShell module for displaying toast notifications: BurntToast.
There’s something almost magical about being able to easily display toast notifications
just by running a line of PowerShell. I’m a fan of anything that extends the PowerShell
experience outside of the console. Let’s get started by installing the module.

Install-Module -Name BurntToast

Using the main command from the BurntToast module, New-BurntToastNotification,


create a test toast.

New-BurntToastNotification -Text 'Yoooo, this is a toast notification...


from PowerShell!'

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This is a relatively simple example, but toasts can be customized as needed. You can
place a button on toasts that can take you to places all over the web:

$BlogButton = New-BTButton -Content 'Read Blog" -Arguments


'https://pdq.com/blog' New-BurntToastNotification -Text 'Amazing content
awaits you' -Button $BlogButton

You can even customize the sound or add a Snooze/Dismiss button.

New-BurntToastNotification -Text 'Cookies are done' -SnoozeAndDismiss -


Sound SMS

BurntToast Pomodoro Timer

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If you are anything like me, staying on task can be a challenge. I’ve found that working in
25-minute increments followed by a five-minute break helps me get more done and
ensures that I take adequate breaks. Turns out this approach is called the Pomodoro
Technique. Let’s create a Pomodoro Timer with PowerShell that displays a toast
notification upon completion.

This function needs to do two things: wait for 25 minutes and then display a toast. Just
running Start-Sleep would cause the PowerShell console to be busy, so we can leverage
PowerShell background jobs so that we can still use our PowerShell Window during the
Pomodoro timer.

Define the function in the active PowerShell console.

Function Start-PomodoroTimer { Param( $Minutes = 25 $seconds = 60 *


$Minutes $sb = { Start-Sleep -Seconds $using:seconds New-
BurntToastNotification -Text 'Timer complete. Take a break and get back to
it' -SnoozeandDismiss -Sound SMS } Start-Job -Name 'Pomodoro Timer' -
ScriptBlock $sb -Argumentlist $seconds }

Once the function is defined, simply run Start-PomodoroTimer and get to work! This will
start a job in the background that waits a specified number of minutes and then displays a
toast.

I save this function to my PowerShell profile.ps1 file and regularly use it.

Looking for other PowerShell protips?


Here are three of our favorite PowerShell modules.

Deploying a toast notification


Do you have any users who never reboot their machine? You can automate away your
reboot reminders using PDQ Deploy and Inventory, PowerShell, and BurntToast. Let’s
create a package in PDQ Deploy that will show a toast notification to users that need to

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reboot their machines for one reason or another. The idea and process behind this
notification can be applied to any other time you’d need to display a notification on a
machine.

Let’s create a PowerShell script that we can deploy to computers.

The first thing we need to tackle is installing the BurntToast module on our targets. We
can do this by modifying the Install and Import Module script from the PowerShell-
Scanners repository: PowerShell-Scanners/Install and Import Module.ps1 at master ·
pdq/PowerShell-Scanners (github.com)

$ModuleName = 'BurntToast' # Install the module if it is not already


installed, then load it. Try { $null = Get-InstalledModule $ModuleName -
ErrorAction Stop } Catch { if ( -not ( Get-PackageProvider -ListAvailable |
Where-Object Name -eq "Nuget" ) ) { $null = Install-PackageProvider "Nuget"
-Force } $null = Install-Module $ModuleName -Force } $null = Import-Module
$ModuleName -Force

This will ensure that the module is downloaded on the computer that it is being run on.
Next, we need to create the actual toast notification. For this one, we will keep it simple
and elegant.

New-BurntToastNotification -Text "This computer hasn't been rebooted in


$uptimeDays days. Please reboot when possible." -SnoozeAndDismiss

To add a bit of customization to our script, we are going to check the uptime on the
computer. If it’s less than seven days, we will exit out of the script with a return code of 0.

$Days = 7 # Check the uptime $cim = Get-CimInstance win32_operatingsystem


$uptime = (Get-Date) - ($cim.LastBootUpTime) $uptimeDays = $Uptime.Days #
return code 0 if this computer hasn't been online for too long if
($uptimeDays -LT $Days) { Exit 0 }

Here is the completed script, to be saved as a .ps1 file. Make sure to always test, modify
(if needed), and verify any code before running it in your environment. This script has a
Days parameter that can be used to specify the minimum number of days for a computer
to be online before displaying a message. If the computer hasn’t been online longer than
the Days parameter, the script will exit and not display a toast.

[CmdletBinding()] param( $Days = 7 ) $ModuleName = 'BurntToast' # Check the


uptime $cim = Get-CimInstance win32_operatingsystem $uptime = (Get-Date) -
($cim.LastBootUpTime) $uptimeDays = $Uptime.Days # return code 0 if this
computer hasn't been online for too long if ($uptimeDays -LT $Days) {
Write-Verbose "Uptime is $uptimeDays days. Script will not proceed" -
Verbose Exit 0 } # Install the module if it is not already installed, then
load it. Try { $null = Get-InstalledModule $ModuleName -ErrorAction Stop }
Catch { if ( -not ( Get-PackageProvider -ListAvailable | Where-Object Name
-eq "Nuget" ) ) { $null = Install-PackageProvider "Nuget" -Force } $null =
Install-Module $ModuleName -Force } $null = Import-Module $ModuleName -

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Force Write-Verbose "Displaying Toast" -Verbose New-BurntToastNotification
-Text "This computer hasn't been reboot in $uptimeDays days. Please reboot
when possible." -SnoozeAndDismiss

Now, we need to package up this script and deploy it using PDQ Deploy. Make sure to
save your script as a .ps1 file and put it into a location that works for your environment,
whether that be a network share or your PDQ Deploy Repository. Create a new package
in PDQ Deploy and set the conditions so that it only runs on supported operating
systems. In my testing, this worked on Windows 10, Windows 11, Server 2019, and
Server 2022. Set the Logged On State condition so that it only runs if someone is logged
on.

Toast notifications need to be run in the context of the logged-on user. On the options tab,
set the Run As mode accordingly.

Next, add an Install step and select the script that you recently saved.

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You can use the Parameters field to choose a different number of days, and setting it to –
Days 0 will show it for all computers.

If the computer that you deploy this to hasn’t been rebooted in seven days, the logged-on
user should see something like this after deploying the package to them:

BurntToast is a great tool to add to your toolbelt, and I regularly find reasons to add it to
my scripts. We only covered a small amount of what you can do with BurntToast. To learn
more, check out the Github page. If you like PowerShell and want to hear more, check
out the PowerShell Podcast.

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Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/3jTldOMbBrY

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