I've just started using PowerShell and I have a task where I need to be able to have the file path displayed on screen when I enter the file name.
Is there a script that allows me to do the below ? :
Ex 1: I enter "test.txt" and I get "C:\Program Files...."
Ex 2: I enter a file name "My Documents" and I also get its path.
I have searched online on how to do this but I didn't quite find what I was looking for and all the queries/answers were too complicated for me to understand.
Can anyone help me out, please?
Thanks in advance!
Here is a starter sample for you.
This example search only within the confine of the paths present is the Path system environment variable. It also only looks for files and do not recurse through these path.
So anything you could access directly from the command line should be available to you through it.
Now, if you want to search the whole drive, you could replace the $DefaultPaths assignment with Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:' -Recurse but doing that each time won't be super efficient.
You could do it and it will work... but it will be slow.
To search on the whole drive or whole filesystem, there are alternative methods that might work better. Some examples of what might entice:
Using a database which you have to buld & maintain to index all the files so that when you search, results are instantaneous and / or very fast
Parsing the MFT table (if using Windows / NTFS filesystem only) instead of using Get-ChildItem (This is not somehting natively doable through a simple cmdlet though) .
Relying on a third party software and interface with (For example, Void Tools Everything search engine already parse MFT and build its own database, allowing users to search instantly through a Windows NTFS filesystem. It also have its own SDK you can plug in through Powershell and retrieve what you seek instantly. The caveats is that you need the software installed first for that solution to work.)
Example: Searching through all paths defined in the Path variable
# What you are looking for. Accept wildcards characters (*)
$Filter = 'notepad.exe'
# Get the System Environment Path variable in an array
$DefaultPaths = $env:Path -split ';'
$Paths =
Foreach ($P in $DefaultPaths) {
# Search for files matching the specified filter. Ignore errors (often if the path do not exist but is sin the Path)
$MatchingFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path $P -Filter $Filter -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if ($MatchingFiles.count -gt 0) {
$MatchingFiles.Directory.FullName
}
}
$Paths | out-string | Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan
Output for Notepad.exe search using this method.
C:\Windows\system32
C:\Windows
I am trying to copy files from mapped network drive.Some of them gets copied but others are not copied as filename has got some wierd characters.
for example my mapped network drive Z: contains the following files:
skifteretsattest 1(1).pdf
MailBody.msg
k�rekort terje(3).pdf
I am able to copy first two files from mapped network drive but not the last one using the below command
Copy-Item -LiteralPath Z:\$name -Destination I:\Dat\SomePath\ss/ -Force
The error which I get is:
Copy-Item : Could not find file 'Z:\k�rekort terje(3).pdf
I tried [WildcardPattern]::Escape($name) but that also did not work
Kindly help if anybody knows the solution
Maybe you could use robocopy.exe oder xcopy.exe instead?
Maybe old "dir /x" can help to find out the old "8.3" filename (like "GET-GP~1.PS1" for "Get-GPProcessingTime.ps1") and this can be used to copy or rename the file?
I also remember something about bypassing file system logic using unc-like syntax like \\0\driveletter\directory or whatever - unfortunately I don't remember the exact syntax. Maybe someone else does?
Try something like this:
$files = Get-ChildItem -Path "Z:\"
$files | % { Copy-Item -Destination "I:\Dat\SomePath\ss" }
Using PowerShell I would like to invoke the print verb on multiple files. In Windows Explorer I can go into a folder, select a number of files, right-click and choose the print options. This opens up the Print Pictures dialog with all the selected files. I am able to do this for one file using:
$path = "C:\person.jpg";
Start-Process -FilePath $path -Verb Print | Out-Null;
Start-Sleep -s 150;
But was wondering how I could do it for a number of files.
You can use COM to invoke a verb on multiple files in one operation.
Assuming...
$folderPath = 'X:\Test'
$verbName = 'print'
$verbArguments = ''
...you can print all objects in a folder with...
$application = New-Object -ComObject 'Shell.Application'
$folder = $application.NameSpace($folderPath)
$folderItems = $folder.Items()
Write-Verbose "Folder ""$($folder.Self.Name)"" contains $($folderItems.Count) item(s)."
$folderItems.InvokeVerbEx($verbName, $verbArguments)
I say "objects" because $folderItems will contain both files and folders. The default appears to be enumerate subfolders and ignore hidden objects, while verbs are ignored on objects that don't support them.
If, for example, you wanted to only print files with a certain extension that are immediate children and include hidden files, you can do so using the Filter() method...
New-Variable -Name 'SHCONTF_NONFOLDERS' -Option 'Constant' -Value 0x00040
New-Variable -Name 'SHCONTF_INCLUDEHIDDEN' -Option 'Constant' -Value 0x00080
$application = New-Object -ComObject 'Shell.Application'
$folder = $application.NameSpace($folderPath)
$folderItems = $folder.Items()
$folderItems.Filter($SHCONTF_NONFOLDERS -bor $SHCONTF_INCLUDEHIDDEN, '*.jpg')
Write-Verbose "Filtered folder ""$($folder.Self.Name)"" contains $($folderItems.Count) item(s)."
$folderItems.InvokeVerbEx($verbName, $verbArguments)
If you want to print some custom set of files that don't nicely align by extension, visibility, etc. then I'm not seeing a way to do that. That would seem to require modifying $folderItems or creating a new FolderItems3 instance, and neither appears to be possible. I see there is a ShellFolderView type that supports item selection, but that looks like it's for interacting with an Explorer(-like) window.
Documentation for types and constants used above:
Shell.Application property
Shell.NameSpace method
Folder object
FolderItems3 object
FolderItems2.InvokeVerbEx method
FolderItems3.Filter method
_SHCONTF Enumeration
As far as I know, you can use foreach to iterate over all items in an array of items (files that you want to print), and execute the action print on each one of them as follows:
Get-ChildItem "C:\" -Include "*.jpg" | ForEach-Object {start-process $_.FullName –Verb Print}
Start-Sleep -s 150
This will:
get all the files (jpg files) found in C
apply the verb print on each file.
Note
You can use -wait parameter for Start-Process instead of Start-Sleep -s 150; This waits for the specified process and its descendants to complete before accepting more input.
I'm trying to copy files using copy-item. Specifically, I want to copy files with a particular extension that are within a folder or its subfolders to another location, and to retain the subfolder hierarchy. I've tried using -filter and -include to specify the file extension, but no files are copied.
My source and destination paths are stored in variables $packageSourcePath and $objPath. When called, $packageSourcePath will be like the following ".\src\projects\Project1\PackageFiles" and $objPath will be like the following ".\bld\Project1\obj".
The command I've tried using is this:
Copy-Item -Path $packageSourcePath\* -Filter *.resw -Destination $objPath -Recurse
I've also tried variations, such as leaving off * from the path, or using -Include instead of -Filter. Nothing works. If I leave out the -Filter argument, then files copy, but all of the files are copied. I only want files with the particular extension.
I've given up on Copy-Item. JohnLBevan's answer didn't actually do what I want since all files in the source root get copied, even though they don't match the filter. I tried piping Convert-Path | Select-String | Copy-Item but still got all files in the source root being copied.
A contact in a different context provided a couple of suggestions:
1)
Get-ChildItem -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction Ignore -Path $packageSourcePath -Filter *.resw | % {
$src = $_.FullName
$dst = Join-Path $objPath $src.SubString($packageSourcePath.Length)
echo "copy ""$src"" ""$dst"""
}
I think this is a bit harder to follow, hence less maintainable for the next person (likely another PS-neophyte like me) a year from now. ("Why is the -ErrorAction parameter needed here? What's the behaviour of the Substring() method, and why can't I find that using Get-Help?")
This suggestion is a bit clearer, after re-familiarizing with attrib and checking the effect of the xcopy switches:
2)
cd $packageSourcePath
attrib -a /s
attrib +a *.resw /s
xcopy /eidlm $packageSourcePath $objPath
But if we're going to use xcopy, we don't need to call attrib:
xcopy $packageSourcePath*.resw $objPath /s /i > $null
The only problem with this for my scenario is that xcopy emits an error if no matching files are found. My script is being used for a VSTS build task, and the xcopy errors cause the build task to fail. (For that reason, I'm guess that suggestion 2 also wouldn't work for me.)
So, I've opted for this:
# In PS version 5.1, nothing gets copied using Copy-Item $packageSourcePath\* -Filter *.resw ...
# so resorting to using xcopy, which mostly works. The one issue is that xcopy will output an
# error if no matching file is found, so using GCI first to test for a matching file.
if ($(Get-ChildItem $packageSourcePath\*.resw -Recurse).count -gt 0) {
xcopy $packageSourcePath\*.resw $objPath /s /i > $null
}
The condition using GCI is added to check there are matching files before calling xcopy, thereby avoiding any errors.
I'm still amazed that Copy-Item -Filter -Recurse didn't work.
This should do it (obviously this could be done in 1 line; I've assigned values to the variables just to help make it readable / self-explanatory):
[string]$filter = '*.resw'
[string]$source = Join-Path -Path $packageSourcePath -ChildPath '*'
[string]$target = $objPath
$source | Convert-Path | Copy-Item -Filter $filter -Recurse -Destination $target -Container #-Force
Notes:
We append the asterisk to the source path to ensure that we copy the contents of the source folder to the destination, without copying the source's root folder into the destination (i.e. say we're copying c:\temp\from to c:\temp\to, we don't want c:\temp\to\from (unless it's a copy of c:\temp\from\from)).
We use the Join-Path cmdlet to append this asterisk to ensure the appropriate slashes are inserted into the path.
We do a Convert-Path on the source to resolve the asterisk to the child folder/file names... for some reason copy-item doesn't handle these asterisks well. NB: Convert-Path will potentially return an array of paths; i.e. if there's more than one file/subfolder directly under the source folder. Get-Item or Resolve-Path could equally be used for this; I prefer Convert-Path since it returns a simple string array, rather than a more complex type; but there's no strong argument for using any one over the others.
We pipe these source paths to the Copy-Item command so it can be applied to each path returned by Convert-Path.
We include -Recurse to say we're interested in anything in the subfolders of the copied path.
We include the -Container parameter to say that we want to preserve any folder structure when copying. Strictly this is not needed, as this switch is defaulted to true (i.e. rather we should specify if we don't want this behaviour: -Container:$false; but I like to be clear that I deliberately want to preserve the directory structure, as opposed to leaving the assumption that I may not have thought of this. There's a better explanation of this here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21798660/361842.
You could optionally include -Force; this would mean that should an item of the same name already exist in the target we overwrite it instead of getting an error.
Related documentation:
Join-Path
Convert-Path
Copy-Item
Update 2018-01-03
Per comments, this solution should ensure that only those items you want get copied, and pre-existing directories shouldn't cause issues.
[string]$filter = '*.resw'
[string]$source = $packageSourcePath
[string]$target = $objPath
#copy all files in subfolders of the source
$source | Get-ChildItem -Directory | Copy-Item -Filter $filter -Recurse -Destination $target -Container -Force
#copy all files in root of the source
$source | Get-ChildItem -File -Filter $filter | Copy-Item -Destination $target -Container -Force
This solution uses 2 steps; there's probably a better option, but due to the peculiarities / bug in this cmdlet the above's a reliable option.
I'm writing a simple script to delete USMT migration folders after a certain amount of days:
## Server List ##
$servers = "Delorean","Adelaide","Brisbane","Melbourne","Newcastle","Perth"
## Number of days (-3 is over three days ago) ##
$days = -3
$timelimit = (Get-Date).AddDays($days)
foreach ($server in $servers)
{
$deletedusers = #()
$folders = Get-ChildItem \\$server\USMT$ | where {$_.psiscontainer}
write-host "Checking server : " $server
foreach ($folder in $folders)
{
If ($folder.LastWriteTime -lt $timelimit -And $folder -ne $null)
{
$deletedusers += $folder
Remove-Item -recurse -force $folder.fullname
}
}
write-host "Users deleted : " $deletedusers
write-host
}
However I keep hitting the dreaded Remove-Item : The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.
I've been looking at workarounds and alternatives but they all revolve around me caring what is in the folder.
I was hoping for a more simple solution as I don't really care about the folder contents if it is marked for deletion.
Is there any native Powershell cmdlet other than Remove-Item -recurse that can accomplish what I'm after?
I often have this issue with node projects. They nest their dependencies and once git cloned, it's difficult to delete them. A nice node utility I came across is rimraf.
npm install rimraf -g
rimraf <dir>
Just as CADII said in another answer: Robocopy is able to create paths longer than the limit of 260 characters. Robocopy is also able to delete such paths. You can just mirror some empty folder over your path containing too long names in case you want to delete it.
For example:
robocopy C:\temp\some_empty_dir E:\temp\dir_containing_very_deep_structures /MIR
Here's the Robocopy reference to know the parameters and various options.
I've created a PowerShell function that is able to delete a long path (>260) using the mentioned robocopy technique:
function Remove-PathToLongDirectory
{
Param(
[string]$directory
)
# create a temporary (empty) directory
$parent = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempPath()
[string] $name = [System.Guid]::NewGuid()
$tempDirectory = New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path (Join-Path $parent $name)
robocopy /MIR $tempDirectory.FullName $directory | out-null
Remove-Item $directory -Force | out-null
Remove-Item $tempDirectory -Force | out-null
}
Usage example:
Remove-PathToLongDirectory c:\yourlongPath
This answer on SuperUser solved it for me: https://superuser.com/a/274224/85532
Cmd /C "rmdir /S /Q $myDir"
I learnt a trick a while ago that often works to get around long file path issues. Apparently when using some Windows API's certain functions will flow through legacy code that can't handle long file names. However if you format your paths in a particular way, the legacy code is avoided. The trick that solves this problem is to reference paths using the "\\?\" prefix. It should be noted that not all API's support this but in this particular case it worked for me, see my example below:
The following example fails:
PS D:\> get-childitem -path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -hidden
Directory: D:\System Volume Information\dfsr
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a-hs 10/09/2014 11:10 PM 834424 FileIDTable_2
-a-hs 10/09/2014 8:43 PM 3211264 SimilarityTable_2
PS D:\> Remove-Item -Path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -recurse -force
Remove-Item : The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260
characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.
At line:1 char:1
+ Remove-Item -Path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -recurse -force
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : WriteError: (D:\System Volume Information\dfsr:String) [Remove-Item], PathTooLongExcepti
on
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveItemIOError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand
PS D:\>
However, prefixing the path with "\\?\" makes the command work successfully:
PS D:\> Remove-Item -Path "\\?\D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -recurse -force
PS D:\> get-childitem -path "D:\System Volume Information\dfsr" -hidden
PS D:\>
If you have ruby installed, you can use Fileman:
gem install fileman
Once installed, you can simply run the following in your command prompt:
fm rm your_folder_path
This problem is a real pain in the neck when you're developing in node.js on Windows, so fileman becomes really handy to delete all the garbage once in a while
This is a known limitation of PowerShell. The work around is to use dir cmd (sorry, but this is true).
http://asysadmin.tumblr.com/post/17654309496/powershell-path-length-limitation
or as mentioned by AaronH answer use \?\ syntax is in this example to delete build
dir -Include build -Depth 1 | Remove-Item -Recurse -Path "\\?\$($_.FullName)"
If all you're doing is deleting the files, I use a function to shorten the names, then I delete.
function ConvertTo-ShortNames{
param ([string]$folder)
$name = 1
$items = Get-ChildItem -path $folder
foreach ($item in $items){
Rename-Item -Path $item.FullName -NewName "$name"
if ($item.PSIsContainer){
$parts = $item.FullName.Split("\")
$folderPath = $parts[0]
for ($i = 1; $i -lt $parts.Count - 1; $i++){
$folderPath = $folderPath + "\" + $parts[$i]
}
$folderPath = $folderPath + "\$name"
ConvertTo-ShortNames $folderPath
}
$name++
}
}
I know this is an old question, but I thought I would put this here in case somebody needed it.
There is one workaround that uses Experimental.IO from Base Class Libraries project. You can find it over on poshcode, or download from author's blog. 260 limitation is derived from .NET, so it's either this, or using tools that do not depend on .NET (like cmd /c dir, as #Bill suggested).
Combination of tools can work best, try doing a dir /x to get the 8.3 file name instead. You could then parse out that output to a text file then build a powershell script to delete the paths that you out-file'd. Take you all of a minute. Alternatively you could just rename the 8.3 file name to something shorter then delete.
For my Robocopy worked in 1, 2 and 3
First create an empty directory lets say c:\emptydir
ROBOCOPY c:\emptydir c:\directorytodelete /purge
rmdir c:\directorytodelete
This is getting old but I recently had to work around it again. I ended up using 'subst' as it didn't require any other modules or functions be available on the PC this was running from. A little more portable.
Basically find a spare drive letter, 'subst' the long path to that letter, then use that as the base for GCI.
Only limitation is that the $_.fullname and other properties will report the drive letter as the root path.
Seems to work ok:
$location = \\path\to\long\
$driveLetter = ls function:[d-z]: -n | ?{ !(test-path $_) } | random
subst $driveLetter $location
sleep 1
Push-Location $driveLetter -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Get-ChildItem -Recurse
subst $driveLetter /D
That command is obviously not to delete files but can be substituted.
PowerShell can easily be used with AlphaFS.dll to do actual file I/O stuff
without the PATH TOO LONG hassle.
For example:
Import-Module <path-to-AlphaFS.dll>
[Alphaleonis.Win32.Filesystem.Directory]::Delete($path, $True)
Please see at Codeplex: https://alphafs.codeplex.com/ for this .NET project.
I had the same issue while trying to delete folders on a remote machine.
Nothing helped but... I found one trick :
# 1:let's create an empty folder
md ".\Empty" -erroraction silentlycontinue
# 2: let's MIR to the folder to delete : this will empty the folder completely.
robocopy ".\Empty" $foldertodelete /MIR /LOG+:$logname
# 3: let's delete the empty folder now:
remove-item $foldertodelete -force
# 4: we can delete now the empty folder
remove-item ".\Empty" -force
Works like a charm on local or remote folders (using UNC path)
Adding to Daniel Lee's solution,
When the $myDir has spaces in the middle it gives FILE NOT FOUND errors considering set of files splitted from space. To overcome this use quotations around the variable and put powershell escape character to skip the quatations.
PS>cmd.exe /C "rmdir /s /q <grave-accent>"$myDir<grave-accent>""
Please substitute the proper grave-accent character instead of <grave-accent>
SO plays with me and I can't add it :). Hope some one will update it for others to understand easily
Just for completeness, I have come across this a few more times and have used a combination of both 'subst' and 'New-PSDrive' to work around it in various situations.
Not exactly a solution, but if anyone is looking for alternatives this might help.
Subst seems very sensitive to which type of program you are using to access the files, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, seems to be the same with New-PSDrive.
Any thing developed using .NET out of the box will fail with paths too long. You will have to move them to 8.3 names, PInVoke (Win32) calls, or use robocopy