PowerShell ForEach-Object parameters

Question

I am currently trying to use the Get-RemoteProgram script to list of installed programs on remote computers.

Not only do I want to capture the remote program list but also the version which is straight forward for a single system.

RemoteProgram -ComputerName remotecomputername -Property DisplayVersion,VersionMajor

ProgramName                                                 ComputerName        DisplayVersion VersionMajor
-----------                                                 ------------        -------------- ------------
System Center Endpoint Protection                           remotecomputername  4.7.214.0                 4
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x64) remotecomputername  10.0.50903                4
Synaptics Pointing Device Driver                            remotecomputername  18.0.7.34                18

However, when I loop this across multiple systems I lose the DisplayVersion and MajorVersion fields completely.

Get-Content -Path C:\Temp\computerlist.txt | ForEach-Object -Begin {RemoteProgram} -Process {RemoteProgram -ComputerName $_ -Property DisplayVersion,VersionMajor}

ProgramName                                                ComputerName
-----------                                                ------------
System Center Endpoint Protection                          remotecomputer
Microsoft Visual J# 2.0 Redistributable Package - SE (x64) remotecomputer
Mozilla Firefox 57.0.2 (x64 en-US)                         remotecomputer
Mozilla Maintenance Service                                remotecomputer

RemoteProgram is not a standard PowerShell command, so you'll have to include its implementation to get help. — briantist
– briantist, Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 1:48
Have you tried piping it to Format-List *? Just curious if you see the "missing" parameters that way. — briantist
– briantist, Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 2:10
OMG That worked! Thank you! So do you think it I export it to CSV the fields will show? Havent tried that yet. — C Dubya
– C Dubya, Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 2:12
Yeah it should work (without the Format-List command); see my answer. — briantist
– briantist, Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 2:15

briantist · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-06 02:15:24Z

2

This is a case of PowerShell's output formatting.

When an object is returned, you get the full object and all of its properties.

When you try to display an object without instructions, PowerShell does its best to display it appropriately. That means it will decide which properties to show, whether to display them as a table or list, etc.

You can override how its displayed with Format-* commands, but for the purposes of using the objects, all the information is there.

That means if you pipe it to something like Export-Csv, it will use all the properties even if you aren't seeing them in a normal display.

If you want to see them specifically, use a Format-* command, but again those are for display only; don't send the out of those to other commands.

answered Feb 6, 2018 at 2:15

briantist

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