2 Methods to Get User SID on Windows

The Security Identifier (SID) is a unique alphanumeric identifier assigned to each user and group account on Windows. SID is important for managing security permissions and access control within the Windows operating system. This tutorial provides 2 methods how to get user SID on Windows.

Method 1 - CMD

To obtain the SID for the current user, run the following command:

wmic useraccount where name="%username%" get sid | find /v "SID"

Output example:

S-1-5-21-6752202-1117913881-3971796899-1001

Use the following command, to get the SID of a specific user (e.g. Guest):

wmic useraccount where name="Guest" get sid | find /v "SID"

Method 2 - PowerShell

In PowerShell, the SID of the current user can be retrieved as follows:

[System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent().User.Value

To get the SID of a specific user using PowerShell, we can use the Get-WmiObject cmdlet to query the Win32_UserAccount class:

(Get-WmiObject Win32_UserAccount -Filter "Name='Guest'").SID