How to get the name of the application pools when they are using GUIDs?

SharePoint has decided to use GUIDs for this Name. Within Central Administration the Application Pools are displayed using a SharePoint only property – Name, which is actually a Display Name (e.g. SharePoint Web Services Default).

The GUIDs used are, wait for it, yes – unique. These are not “well known GUIDs” like class ids. They will be different on every installation. It would appear the GUID love from SQL server has found its way into IIS thru the back door.

If you want to find out, which App Pool in IIS is which App Pool in SharePoint (crazy I know!) without fiddling around in the Internet Services Manager, you can do so with the following PowerShell:

First Run the following command to get list of Application pools with accounts assigned to it

Get-SPServiceApplicationPool

Then add

| select Id, Name

It will be Get-SPServiceApplicationPool | select Id, Name