Change BIOS settings - WMI - Powershell - Password protected

[Feyh]

Hello,

we are currently trying to automate many things regarding BIOS settings by using powershell and the HP instrumentedbios WMI namespace.

Changing settings through a simple powershell command like this is kinda easy and works fine:

$BIOS = gwmi -class hp_biossettinginterface -Namespace "root\hp\instrumentedbios"
$result = $BIOS.SetBIOSSetting("NumLock on at boot", "Enable")

The issue we are running into is a password protected BIOS. Doing the same thing as above with a password parameter simply isn't working. I've already found this post (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/Powershell-Command-to-Make-Chan...) but unfortunately it doesn't help. Using this method to encode our password and adding it as the password paremeter still results in returncode 6(="Access Denied"). It's a simple password containing lower case letters and numbers, no special signs and such.

$BIOS_PW = "<kbd/>" + (Convert-ToKbdString -UTF16String "OurPassword")

$BIOS = gwmi -class hp_biossettinginterface -Namespace "root\hp\instrumentedbios"
$result = $BIOS.SetBIOSSetting("NumLock on at boot", "Enable", "$BIOS_PW")

We are running into this issue on all our current devices (820/840 G3, Zbook 17, Zbook 15).

How am I supposed to encode/encrypt my password and add it as parameter to the SetBIOSSetting function?

Current BIOS version: N75 Ver 01.22 12/12/2017

[Feyh · Accepted solution]

Well, nevermind. This way it is working:

$Password = "<utf-16/>"+"mypassword"

$BIOS = gwmi -class hp_biossettinginterface -Namespace "root\hp\instrumentedbios"
$result = $BIOS.SetBIOSSetting("NumLock on at boot", "Enable", "$Password")

This results in return 0(="Success")