How to pick up selective fields from a command output in powershell?

Question

I am learning powershell as part of windows administration and I have a bit of a problem. I need to run sysinfo command for various systems and pick up the OS Name, OS Version , Total Physical Memory and other fields from the output. My problem is the output is not a powershell object, so I can't use property based processing. What can I do to pick up only these fields ? I tried using findstr, but for fields like Hotfix, which have multiple values, it only picks up the first line.

Command

systeminfo /S <IP Address> /U Administrator /P <Password>

Output:

    Host Name:                 TEST
    OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
    OS Version:                6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
    OS Manufacturer:           Microsoft Corporation
    OS Configuration:          Standalone Server
    OS Build Type:             Multiprocessor Free

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:05:01Z

Running systeminfo -? indicates the command supports a format option. Using the CSV format, you can let PowerShell import the output directly:

systeminfo -fo CSV | ConvertFrom-Csv

This will return a custom PSObject containing properties like OS Name, Host Name, etc, which you can access with quotes (as Matt mentioned in his answer): $csv.'OS Name'

For reference, here is what systeminfo -? shows on my machine:

SYSTEMINFO [/S system [/U username [/P [password]]]] [/FO format] [/NH]

Description:
    This tool displays operating system configuration information for
    a local or remote machine, including service pack levels.

Parameter List:
    /S      system           Specifies the remote system to connect to.

    /U      [domain\]user    Specifies the user context under which
                             the command should execute.

    /P      [password]       Specifies the password for the given
                             user context. Prompts for input if omitted.

    /FO     format           Specifies the format in which the output
                             is to be displayed.
                             Valid values: "TABLE", "LIST", "CSV".

    /NH                      Specifies that the "Column Header" should
                             not be displayed in the output.
                             Valid only for "TABLE" and "CSV" formats.

    /?                       Displays this help message.

Examples:
    SYSTEMINFO
    SYSTEMINFO /?
    SYSTEMINFO /S system
    SYSTEMINFO /S system /U user
    SYSTEMINFO /S system /U domain\user /P password /FO TABLE
    SYSTEMINFO /S system /FO LIST
    SYSTEMINFO /S system /FO CSV /NH

Matt · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-15 11:22:30Z

0

I know i can make the answer better but at least a start would be this:

$file = systeminfo
$file | Where-Object{($_ -like "OS*") -or ($_ -like "Host Name:*")}

Capture the systeminfo into a variable (array) that can be piped into Where-Object to parse out the data you are looking for

output:

Host Name:                 TE_ST
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise 
OS Version:                6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
OS Manufacturer:           Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration:          Standalone Workstation
OS Build Type:             Multiprocessor Free

I am trying to turn it into a proper object to improve my answer

answered Aug 15, 2014 at 11:22

Matt

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Comments

Matt · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-15 12:27:01Z

I am making another answer in a attempt to not loose the simplicity of my first answer. To continue:

$sysInfo= systeminfo
$output = $sysInfo | 
        Where-Object{($_ -like "OS*") -or ($_ -like "Host Name:*")} | 
        ForEach-Object{ $_ -replace ":\s+"," = "}
ConvertFrom-StringData($output | Out-String)

Again, the systeminfo is captured into a variable $sysInfo. Capture the desired output in $output.

This time I run each line with a replace using the ForEach-Object -replace ":\s+"," = ". The reason is I am going to turn the text into a hash table which is a series of name = value. The regex replace changes the colon and any following white space into =.

The $output is of type System.Object[]. However we need it to be a string in my example to it can be put into ConvertFrom-StringData which is why we pipe $output into Out-String.

That being said you get the following:

Name                           Value                                                                  
----                           -----                                                                  
OS Manufacturer                Microsoft Corporation                                                  
OS Version                     6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601                                     
OS Configuration               Member Workstation                                                     
OS Name                        Microsoft Windows 7 Professional                                       
Host Name                      C4093                                                                  
OS Build Type                  Multiprocessor Free

Which you can now use powershell cmd-lets against

$osInfo = ConvertFrom-StringData($output | Out-String)
$osInfo."Os Name"

"Os Name" needs to be in quotes as it contains a space.

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