Powershell script to check if a file exists on remote computer list

Question

I'm new at Powershell, and I'm trying to write a script that checks if a file exists; if it does, it checks if a process is running. I know there are much better ways to write this, but can anyone please give me an idea? Here's what I have:

Get-Content C:\temp\SvcHosts\MaquinasEstag.txt | `
   Select-Object @{Name='ComputerName';Expression={$_}},@{Name='SvcHosts Installed';Expression={ Test-Path "\\$_\c$\Windows\svchosts"}} 

   if(Test-Path "\\$_\c$\Windows\svchosts" eq "True")
   {
        Get-Content C:\temp\SvcHosts\MaquinasEstag.txt | `
        Select-Object @{Name='ComputerName';Expression={$_}},@{Name='SvcHosts Running';Expression={ Get-Process svchosts}} 
   }

The first part (check if the file exists, runs with no problem. But I have an exception when checking if the process is running:

Test-Path : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument 'eq'.
At C:\temp\SvcHosts\TestPath Remote Computer.ps1:4 char:7
+    if(Test-Path "\\$_\c$\Windows\svchosts" eq "True")
+       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Test-Path], ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.TestPathCommand

Any help would be appreciated!

Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-09 20:47:16Z

20

The equality comparison operator is -eq, not eq. The boolean value "true" in PowerShell is $true. And if you want to compare the result of Test-Path to something the way you do, you must run the cmdlet in a subexpression, otherwise -eq "True" would be treated as an additional option eq with the argument "True" to the cmdlet.

Change this:

if(Test-Path "\\$_\c$\Windows\svchosts" eq "True")

into this:

if ( (Test-Path "\\$_\c$\Windows\svchosts") -eq $true )

Or (better yet), since Test-Path already returns a boolean value, simply do this:

if (Test-Path "\\$_\c$\Windows\svchosts")

answered Aug 9, 2013 at 20:47

Ansgar Wiechers

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2 Comments

Bianca Borges Over a year ago

Hi Ansgar, many thanks!! However it's not showing for which machine the process is running. My output is just a list from which machines has the file I'm looking for. However, if the file is there, I need to know also if a process is running. Is there a way to do that? Again, thanks for your time.

Ansgar Wiechers Over a year ago

Select-Object normally reads from a pipeline. If you use it inside a loop, you need to feed it via the -InputObject property: Select-Object -InputObject $_ @{Name=...}.

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