I have a line in my script that downloads a large video file. After the download starts I want to already open the file while is it downloading. The problem is, is that the download command hasn't finished yet so the script stays stuck on the same line.
(Download-File command)
$allFiles = Get-ChildItem | Select-Object -Property name,LastAccessTime | measure-object -Property LastAccessTime -Maximum
$videoFile = Get-ChildItem | Where-Object { $_.LastAccessTime -eq $allFiles.Maximum}
Start-Process $videoFile
(I want this to run in a loop while the download-file command is running)
That should be easy. All you need to do is make it run on a different thread. Use background jobs or Runspaces. Below example is Background Job.
$ScriptBlock = {(Download-File command)}
Start-Job -ScriptBlock $ScriptBlock
do
{
$allFiles = Get-ChildItem | Select-Object -Property name,LastAccessTime | measure-object -Property LastAccessTime -Maximum
$videoFile = Get-ChildItem | Where-Object { $_.LastAccessTime -eq $allFiles.Maximum}
Start-Process $videoFile
}
while (1 -gt 0)
Although, I am not sure if you would want to open the video file in a loop. If it does support opening an incomplete video file, you will have just as many instances of it. Better enclose it in an if (!(Get-Process -name $VideoFile)){} loop to prevent that.
Use the .waitforexit method.
Example:
$proc = Start-Process cmd.exe -PassThru
$proc.WaitForExit()
After the $proc.WaitForExit() line you can open your file.
Its look much better than a loop
I have written a system maintenance script which executes basic functions that retrieve statistics from a host, writes the output to a new PSObject, then finally combines the results and converts it all to a HTML web page.
I do not seem to be able to write the output of Optimize-Volume to the pipeline, I have to use -verbose - why is this? I would like to check the results of the Optimize-Volume cmdlet by looking for the following text which is generated at the end of the -verbose output, depending on the result:-
'It is recommended that you defragment this volume.'
'You do not need to defragment this volume.'
Here is the function:-
function Get-DefragInfo {
$getwmi = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_volume -Filter "DriveType = 3" | Where-Object {$_.DriveLetter -cne $null} -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
$letter = $getwmi.DriveLetter -replace ':'
foreach ($drive in $getwmi)
{
$analysis = Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter $letter -Analyze
if ($analysis -like 'It is recommended that you defragment this volume.')
{
$props =[ordered]#{‘Drive Letter’=$letter
'Defrag Recommended?'='Yes'}
}
elseif ($analysis -like 'You do not need to defragment this volume.')
{
$props =#{‘Drive Letter’=$letter
'Defrag Recommended?'='No'}
}
$obj = New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $props
Write-Output $obj
}
}
How do I capture the output I need?
Thanks in advance.
In PowerShell 3.0 and onward, you can use the stream redirection operator > to capture the Verbose ouput to a variable:
# Merge stream 4 (Verbose) into standard Output stream
$analysis = &{Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter $letter -Analyze -Verbose} 4>&1
# Check the "Message" property of the very last VerboseRecord in the output
if($analysis[-1].Message -like "*It is recommended*")
{
# defrag
}
else
{
# don't defrag
}
If we Get-Help Optimize-Volume -full we'll see the cmdlet has no output.
Some searching lead me to this Microsoft Scripting Guys article that pointed out using the following to check if Defrag is needed.
(gwmi -Class win32_volume -Filter "DriveLetter = 'C:'").DefragAnalysis()
Knowing this, we can easily make an IF Statement.
$DefragCheck = (gwmi -Class win32_volume -Filter "DriveLetter = 'C:'").DefragAnalysis() |
Select DefragRecommended
IF($DefragCheck){"Defrag recommended"}ELSE{"Defrag is not needed."}
It's helpful to pipe cmdlets to Get-Member in order to see if there are any options available. In the above example, we can pipe gwmi -Class win32_volume -Filter "DriveLetter = 'C:'" to Get-Member and find the DefragAnalysis method, which we use dotted notation to access (wrap the Get-WmiObject in () then use a . and the method name followed by (), it looks confusing until you try it a couple times!)
Thanks, I went for the verbose redirection option and it seems to be working well. My method is not the cleanest way of doing it I understand, but it works for me.
I like the second option also, I'm going to look at using this once the script is complete and functionality is proofed.
Thanks for your help once again.
I am trying to find a way of retrieving the date/time of which the last windows update was either installed, or checked for.
So far I have found a function that allows to list recent Windows Updates, but it is far too much data and too bloated for such a simple function. Secondly I have tried to access the registry although I am having no luck in retriving the value I am after.
I am testing this on a Windows 10 Machine although the software will probably reside on Windows Server 2012 R2.
Here is an example of some of the code I have tried:
$key = “SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\Results\Install”
$keytype = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine
$RemoteBase = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenBaseKey($keytype,"My Machine")
$regKey = $RemoteBase.OpenSubKey($key)
$KeyValue = $regkey.GetValue(”LastSuccessTime”)
$System = (Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss")
Also, just trying the Get-ChildItem
$hello = Get-ChildItem -Path “hkcu:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\”
foreach ($a in $hello) {
$a
}
I've checked in regedit and this key does not exist. Going to the "Windows Update" path shows only App Updates and not Windows updates.
EDIT
I seem to be closer to my goal with this line:
Get-HotFix | Where {$_.InstallDate -gt 30}
However how to I only retrive those of which have been installed in the last 30 days? And this doesnt show many results, even using Select $_.InstallDate
an option :
gwmi win32_quickfixengineering |sort installedon -desc
Another alternative, using the com object Microsoft.Update.Session can be find here : https://p0w3rsh3ll.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/getting-windows-updates-installation-history/
in short :
$Session = New-Object -ComObject Microsoft.Update.Session
$Searcher = $Session.CreateUpdateSearcher()
$HistoryCount = $Searcher.GetTotalHistoryCount()
# http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa386532%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
$Searcher.QueryHistory(0,$HistoryCount) | ForEach-Object {$_}
Here you have how to know the date and time of the last Windows update in a single line of Powershell:
(New-Object -com "Microsoft.Update.AutoUpdate"). Results | fl
You also have the following script to check it massively in Windows Server:
$ servers = Get-ADComputer -Filter {(OperatingSystem-like "* windows * server *") -and (Enabled -eq "True")} -Properties OperatingSystem | Sort Name | select -Unique Name
foreach ($ server in $ servers) {
write-host $ server.Name
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $ server.Name -ScriptBlock {
(New-Object -com "Microsoft.Update.AutoUpdate"). Results}
}
Extracted from: https://www.sysadmit.com/2019/03/windows-update-ver-fecha-powershell.html
Get-HotFix |?{$_.InstalledOn -gt ((Get-Date).AddDays(-30))}
Using PowerShell, you can get the date of the las Windows update like this:
$lastWindowsUpdate = (Get-Hotfix | Sort-Object -Property InstalledOn -Descending | Select-Object -First 1).InstalledOn
Before I start, please note I am a beginner at Powershell, so some questions I ask may seem very obvious and stupid to the more experienced.
I have a problem with my script. If I copy paste it into Powershell itself, it works with no problems. However putting it in a .ps1 file, and making it execute with Powershell doesn't work. Can anyone tell me why, and what I can do to make it work using a .ps1? Here's the code:
$Group = import-csv -path C:\Output\Gruppe.csv
$DomainUsers = import-csv -path C:\Output\DomainUsers.csv
$ErrorActionPreference = "SilentlyContinue"
Get-ADGroupMember –identity Test –recursive | select "samaccountname" | Export-csv –path C:\Output\Gruppe.csv -NoTypeInformation
Get-ADUser –Filter * -SearchBase ”ou=Domain Users,dc=sfol,dc=local” | select "samaccountname" | Export-csv –path C:\Output\DomainUsers.csv –NoTypeInformation
Compare-Object $Group $DomainUsers -property samaccountname -IncludeEqual | where-object {$_.SideIndicator -eq "=="} | select "samaccountname" | Export-csv C:\Output\Difference.csv –NoTypeInformation
(Get-Content C:\Output\Difference.csv) | % {$_ -replace '"', ""} | out-file -FilePath C:\Output\Difference.csv -Force -Encoding ascii
$File = "C:\Output\Difference.csv"
$Time = Get-Date
ForEach ($User in (Get-Content $File))
{ Try {
Remove-ADGroupMember -Identity "Test" -Member $User -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop
Add-Content c:\Output\Gruppelog.log -Value "$Time - $User slettet fra gruppen"
}
Catch {
Add-Content c:\Output\Gruppelog.log -Value "$Time - $User medlem kunne ikke blive slettet fra gruppen pga: $($Error[0])"
}
}
I also have another problem I noticed as I am writing this question. What this script does is to print out a userlist from an OU and a group. Then it compares the OU to the group using the two files it printed out, and prints out a new userlist containing only the users that exists in both the OU and the group. Then it uses the new userlist to remove users from the group (so that there is no users that exist in both the OU and group).
This script works well the first time I run it, but if I proceed with re-adding the users to the group, running the script again, sometimes it will only remove some of the users. If I do ctrl+c and CLS after running the script, it works fine. As mentioned, I am a beginner at this, so I'd just like to know why it doesn't work 100% the second time without ctrl+c or cls. Sorry if I am bad at explaining, and I don't expect you to help me with this since it's not a part of the question. But I'd appreciate it if you could.
Kind regards, Shadow
Problem was not having imported the module ActiveDirectory. I thought that when you imported the module once, it would stay for future use in Powershell. This isn't so, so what I did to fix the problem was adding Import-Module ActiveDirectory to the beginning of the code. I still haven't figured out my bonus question, so if anyone can help with that, it'd be great.
Is there a simple way to hook into the standard 'Add or Remove Programs' functionality using PowerShell to uninstall an existing application? Or to check if the application is installed?
$app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Where-Object {
$_.Name -match "Software Name"
}
$app.Uninstall()
Edit: Rob found another way to do it with the Filter parameter:
$app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product `
-Filter "Name = 'Software Name'"
EDIT: Over the years this answer has gotten quite a few upvotes. I would like to add some comments. I have not used PowerShell since, but I remember observing some issues:
If there are more matches than 1 for the below script, it does not work and you must append the PowerShell filter that limits results to 1. I believe it's -First 1 but I'm not sure. Feel free to edit.
If the application is not installed by MSI it does not work. The reason it was written as below is because it modifies the MSI to uninstall without intervention, which is not always the default case when using the native uninstall string.
Using the WMI object takes forever. This is very fast if you just know the name of the program you want to uninstall.
$uninstall32 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "SOFTWARE NAME" } | select UninstallString
$uninstall64 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "SOFTWARE NAME" } | select UninstallString
if ($uninstall64) {
$uninstall64 = $uninstall64.UninstallString -Replace "msiexec.exe","" -Replace "/I","" -Replace "/X",""
$uninstall64 = $uninstall64.Trim()
Write "Uninstalling..."
start-process "msiexec.exe" -arg "/X $uninstall64 /qb" -Wait}
if ($uninstall32) {
$uninstall32 = $uninstall32.UninstallString -Replace "msiexec.exe","" -Replace "/I","" -Replace "/X",""
$uninstall32 = $uninstall32.Trim()
Write "Uninstalling..."
start-process "msiexec.exe" -arg "/X $uninstall32 /qb" -Wait}
To fix up the second method in Jeff Hillman's post, you could either do a:
$app = Get-WmiObject
-Query "SELECT * FROM Win32_Product WHERE Name = 'Software Name'"
Or
$app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product `
-Filter "Name = 'Software Name'"
One line of code:
get-package *notepad* |% { & $_.Meta.Attributes["UninstallString"]}
function Uninstall-App {
Write-Output "Uninstalling $($args[0])"
foreach($obj in Get-ChildItem "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall") {
$dname = $obj.GetValue("DisplayName")
if ($dname -contains $args[0]) {
$uninstString = $obj.GetValue("UninstallString")
foreach ($line in $uninstString) {
$found = $line -match '(\{.+\}).*'
If ($found) {
$appid = $matches[1]
Write-Output $appid
start-process "msiexec.exe" -arg "/X $appid /qb" -Wait
}
}
}
}
}
Call it this way:
Uninstall-App "Autodesk Revit DB Link 2019"
I found out that Win32_Product class is not recommended because it triggers repairs and is not query optimized. Source
I found this post from Sitaram Pamarthi with a script to uninstall if you know the app guid. He also supplies another script to search for apps really fast here.
Use like this: .\uninstall.ps1 -GUID
{C9E7751E-88ED-36CF-B610-71A1D262E906}
[cmdletbinding()]
param (
[parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]
[string]$ComputerName = $env:computername,
[parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true,Mandatory=$true)]
[string]$AppGUID
)
try {
$returnval = ([WMICLASS]"\\$computerName\ROOT\CIMV2:win32_process").Create("msiexec `/x$AppGUID `/norestart `/qn")
} catch {
write-error "Failed to trigger the uninstallation. Review the error message"
$_
exit
}
switch ($($returnval.returnvalue)){
0 { "Uninstallation command triggered successfully" }
2 { "You don't have sufficient permissions to trigger the command on $Computer" }
3 { "You don't have sufficient permissions to trigger the command on $Computer" }
8 { "An unknown error has occurred" }
9 { "Path Not Found" }
9 { "Invalid Parameter"}
}
To add a little to this post, I needed to be able to remove software from multiple Servers. I used Jeff's answer to lead me to this:
First I got a list of servers, I used an AD query, but you can provide the array of computer names however you want:
$computers = #("computer1", "computer2", "computer3")
Then I looped through them, adding the -computer parameter to the gwmi query:
foreach($server in $computers){
$app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product -computer $server | Where-Object {
$_.IdentifyingNumber -match "5A5F312145AE-0252130-432C34-9D89-1"
}
$app.Uninstall()
}
I used the IdentifyingNumber property to match against instead of name, just to be sure I was uninstalling the correct application.
Here is the PowerShell script using msiexec:
echo "Getting product code"
$ProductCode = Get-WmiObject win32_product -Filter "Name='Name of my Software in Add Remove Program Window'" | Select-Object -Expand IdentifyingNumber
echo "removing Product"
# Out-Null argument is just for keeping the power shell command window waiting for msiexec command to finish else it moves to execute the next echo command
& msiexec /x $ProductCode | Out-Null
echo "uninstallation finished"
I will make my own little contribution. I needed to remove a list of packages from the same computer. This is the script I came up with.
$packages = #("package1", "package2", "package3")
foreach($package in $packages){
$app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Where-Object {
$_.Name -match "$package"
}
$app.Uninstall()
}
I hope this proves to be useful.
Note that I owe David Stetler the credit for this script since it is based on his.
Based on Jeff Hillman's answer:
Here's a function you can just add to your profile.ps1 or define in current PowerShell session:
# Uninstall a Windows program
function uninstall($programName)
{
$app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product -Filter ("Name = '" + $programName + "'")
if($app -ne $null)
{
$app.Uninstall()
}
else {
echo ("Could not find program '" + $programName + "'")
}
}
Let's say you wanted to uninstall Notepad++. Just type this into PowerShell:
> uninstall("notepad++")
Just be aware that Get-WmiObject can take some time, so be patient!
Use:
function remove-HSsoftware{
[cmdletbinding()]
param(
[parameter(Mandatory=$true,
ValuefromPipeline = $true,
HelpMessage="IdentifyingNumber can be retrieved with `"get-wmiobject -class win32_product`"")]
[ValidatePattern('{[a-fA-F0-9]{8}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{12}}')]
[string[]]$ids,
[parameter(Mandatory=$false,
ValuefromPipeline=$true,
ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true,
HelpMessage="Computer name or IP adress to query via WMI")]
[Alias('hostname,CN,computername')]
[string[]]$computers
)
begin {}
process{
if($computers -eq $null){
$computers = Get-ADComputer -Filter * | Select dnshostname |%{$_.dnshostname}
}
foreach($computer in $computers){
foreach($id in $ids){
write-host "Trying to uninstall sofware with ID ", "$id", "from computer ", "$computer"
$app = Get-WmiObject -class Win32_Product -Computername "$computer" -Filter "IdentifyingNumber = '$id'"
$app | Remove-WmiObject
}
}
}
end{}}
remove-hssoftware -ids "{8C299CF3-E529-414E-AKD8-68C23BA4CBE8}","{5A9C53A5-FF48-497D-AB86-1F6418B569B9}","{62092246-CFA2-4452-BEDB-62AC4BCE6C26}"
It's not fully tested, but it ran under PowerShell 4.
I've run the PS1 file as it is seen here. Letting it retrieve all the Systems from the AD and trying to uninstall multiple applications on all systems.
I've used the IdentifyingNumber to search for the Software cause of David Stetlers input.
Not tested:
Not adding ids to the call of the function in the script, instead starting the script with parameter IDs
Calling the script with more then 1 computer name not automatically retrieved from the function
Retrieving data from the pipe
Using IP addresses to connect to the system
What it does not:
It doesn't give any information if the software actually was found on any given system.
It does not give any information about failure or success of the deinstallation.
I wasn't able to use uninstall(). Trying that I got an error telling me that calling a method for an expression that has a value of NULL is not possible. Instead I used Remove-WmiObject, which seems to accomplish the same.
CAUTION: Without a computer name given it removes the software from ALL systems in the Active Directory.
For Most of my programs the scripts in this Post did the job.
But I had to face a legacy program that I couldn't remove using msiexec.exe or Win32_Product class. (from some reason I got exit 0 but the program was still there)
My solution was to use Win32_Process class:
with the help from nickdnk this command is to get the uninstall exe file path:
64bit:
[array]$unInstallPathReg= gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match $programName } | select UninstallString
32bit:
[array]$unInstallPathReg= gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match $programName } | select UninstallString
you will have to clean the the result string:
$uninstallPath = $unInstallPathReg[0].UninstallString
$uninstallPath = $uninstallPath -Replace "msiexec.exe","" -Replace "/I","" -Replace "/X",""
$uninstallPath = $uninstallPath .Trim()
now when you have the relevant program uninstall exe file path you can use this command:
$uninstallResult = (Get-WMIObject -List -Verbose | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq "Win32_Process"}).InvokeMethod("Create","$unInstallPath")
$uninstallResult - will have the exit code. 0 is success
the above commands can also run remotely - I did it using invoke command but I believe that adding the argument -computername can work
For msi installs, "uninstall-package whatever" works fine. For non-msi installs (Programs provider), it takes more string parsing. This should also take into account if the uninstall exe is in a path with spaces and is double quoted. Install-package works with msi's as well.
$uninstall = get-package whatever | % { $_.metadata['uninstallstring'] }
# split quoted and unquoted things on whitespace
$prog, $myargs = $uninstall | select-string '("[^"]*"|\S)+' -AllMatches |
% matches | % value
$prog = $prog -replace '"',$null # call & operator doesn't like quotes
$silentoption = '/S'
$myargs += $silentoption # add whatever silent uninstall option
& $prog $myargs # run uninstaller silently
Start-process doesn't mind the double quotes, if you need to wait anyway:
# "C:\Program Files (x86)\myapp\unins000.exe"
get-package myapp | foreach { start -wait $_.metadata['uninstallstring'] /SILENT }
On more recent windows systems, you can use the following to uninstall msi installed software. You can also check $pkg.ProviderName -EQ "msi" if you like.
$pkg = get-package *name*
$prodCode = "{" + $pkg.TagId + "}"
msiexec.exe /X $prodCode /passive