AutoHotkey (AHK) script to generate & paste a new GUID

guidgen.ahk

; Exposes two hotkeys:  
; - Win+G generates & pastes a new lowercase guid
; - Win+Shift+G generates & pastes a new UPPERCASE guid
; In both cases, the guid is left on the clipboard so you can easily paste it more than once.
;
GUID()
{ 
   format = %A_FormatInteger%       ; save original integer format 
   SetFormat Integer, Hex           ; for converting bytes to hex 
   VarSetCapacity(A,16) 
   DllCall("rpcrt4\UuidCreate","Str",A) 
   Address := &A 
   Loop 16 
   { 
      x := 256 + *Address           ; get byte in hex, set 17th bit 
      StringTrimLeft x, x, 3        ; remove 0x1 
      h = %x%%h%                    ; in memory: LS byte first 
      Address++ 
   } 
   SetFormat Integer, %format%      ; restore original format 
   h := SubStr(h,1,8) . "-" . SubStr(h,9,4) . "-" . SubStr(h,13,4) . "-" . SubStr(h,17,4) . "-" . SubStr(h,21,12)
   return h
} 

; Win+G - Generate and paste a GUID
#g::
guid := GUID()
StringLower, guid, guid
Clipboard := guid
SendInput,^v
return

; Win+Shift+G - Generate an UPPERCASE GUID
#+g::
guid := GUID()
StringUpper, guid, guid
Clipboard := guid
SendInput,^v
return

Neat. exactly what I'm looking for

Thank you!

Great idea - I converted this to v2 format and just generated a GUID 32 random characters and formatted as a GUID without referencing DLLs - https://gist.github.com/mlhDevelopment/6ef44209afbccbcd3a80fcf182b17b2a

@mlhDevelopment -- I'm glad you were inspired by this... however, note that generating a "proper" GUID/UUID is more involved than simply generating random numbers. See RFC 9562. UuidCreate generates a GUID using one of the approved algorithms.

Great call. I knew it couldn't be that easy. I realized my needs were not as stringent to require a compliant GUID but still valued the the lack of external dependencies so I updated the documentation & expectation. Thanks for the feedback.