Creating a PS Credential from a Clear Text Password in Powershell

Before I begin here, let me say, this is very unsecure.  There are very few times when doing this would be a good idea from a security standpoint.  That being said, it is definately possible.

First things first.  We need to build a secure string for the password:

PS C:\> $password = "mypassword" | ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force

We have to use the asPlainText paramater to tell the convertto cmdlet that our source is a plain text string and not an encrypted string which is what it normally expects.  Then, we have to use -force so Powershell knows we really want to do this unsecure technique.

Next we'll put the username into a variable and create the PSCredential object:

PS C:\> $username = "nwtraders\administrator"
PS C:\> $credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($username,$password)

This creates the new PSCrednetial object that is now ready to be used by any cmdlet that needs a PSCredential like Get-WMIObject:

PS C:\> Get-WMIObject win32_logicaldisk -ComputerName Server1 -Credential $credential

I am not reccomending you do this as it is unsecure, but it works if you really need to.  Remember this applies to anything that is expecting a PSCredential object.  Don't quote me right now, but I am pretty sure that the remote PSSession in Powershell V2 uses a PSCredential (among other cmdlets).

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at https://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.