How do I get total physical memory size using PowerShell without WMI?

Question

I'm trying to get the physical memory size using PowerShell, but without using get-wmiobject.

I have been using the following PS cmdlet to get the physical memory size, but the value changes with each new poll.

(get-counter -counter "\Memory\Available Bytes").CounterSamples[0].CookedValue + 
(get-counter -counter "\Memory\Committed Bytes").CounterSamples[0].CookedValue

In general, this gives me a value around: 8605425664 bytes

I'm also testing the value I get from adding these counters with the returned value from

(get-wmiobject -class "win32_physicalmemory" -namespace "root\CIMV2").Capacity

This gives me the value: 8589934592 bytes

So, not only is the total physical memory calculated from counters changing, but it's value differs from the WMI value by a couple megabytes. Anyone have any ideas as to how to get the physical memory size without using WMI?

Answer 1

If you don't want to use WMI, I can suggest systeminfo.exe. But, there may be a better way to do that.

(systeminfo | Select-String 'Total Physical Memory:').ToString().Split(':')[1].Trim()

Answer 2

Let's not over complicate things...:

(Get-CimInstance Win32_PhysicalMemory | Measure-Object -Property capacity -Sum).sum /1gb