PowerShell Pipes Not Working In Visual Studio

Question

We are needing to transition some of our PowerShell scripts to Powershell 7. As part of this, I am now working in Visual Studio Code instead of PowerShell ISE. My problem is that when running script in Visual Studio, pipes don't work.

I have a script to remove all members from a group of security groups, using this line of code:

Get-ADGroupMember -server "XXXX" $Class | ForEach-Object {Remove-ADGroupMember -server "XXXX" $Class $_ -Confirm:$false}

This works if I run the script from the command line, "Powershell - file filename.ps1". But if I run it in VS I get this error:

Remove-ADGroupMember: Cannot bind parameter 'Members'. Cannot convert value "XXX" to type "Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADPrincipal".

Error: "Cannot convert the "XXX" value of type "Deserialized.Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADPrincipal" to type "Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADPrincipal"."

I get this sort of error every time I try to pipe output from one cmdlet to another in VS. These scripts worked just fine in Powershell ISE, but not VS. And again, it will execute properly if I run the script from the command line. But I need to be able to make adjustments on the fly before executing.

Answer 1

Get-ADGroupMember -server "XXXX" $Class | ForEach-Object {Remove-ADGroupMember -server "XXXX" $Class $_ -Confirm:$false}

I have no way to test this, but you don't specify -identity or -members. That might be a problem. Try this.

Get-ADGroupMember -server "XXXX" -Identity $Class | ForEach-Object {Remove-ADGroupMember -server "XXXX" -identity $Class -members $_ -Confirm:$false}

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/activedirectory/get-adgroupmember?view=windowsserver2025-ps

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/activedirectory/remove-adgroupmember?view=windowsserver2019-ps

Answer 2

Hello,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Q&A.

Based on the description, I understand your question is related to PowerShell Pipes Not Working In Visual Studio.

Check you have the latest version of the PowerShell extension for VS Code installed. You can update it from the Extensions view in VS Code.

Check the execution policy in VS Code is set to allow script execution. You can set it using the following command:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

Also, check you are using the PowerShell Integrated Console in VS Code. You can switch to it by selecting it from the terminal dropdown.

If previous steps don't resolve the issue, you might want to consider using a different approach to manage the group members, such as exporting the members to a CSV file and then processing them.

Have a nice day.

Best Regards,

Molly

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Answer 3

Thank you all for your suggestions. It has become clear that this is not a problem with PowerShell, but a problem with Visual Studio Code. I believe I have found a workaround, and I will continue to reserch VS. I am closing this thread.

Answer 4

I can't run the file in VS Code. But I can run it from the command line.

Powershell -file <path and filename>

Answer 5

If you're going to mix both named and positional parameters the positional parameters should be presented first, followed by the named parameters.

# -Identity = position 0 ($Class)
Get-ADGroupMember $Class -server "XXXX" | 
    ForEach-Object {
        # -Identity = position 0 ($Class)
        # -Members  = position 1 ($_)
        Remove-ADGroupMember  $Class $_ -server "XXXX" -Confirm:$false
    }

In your code, "XXXX" is mistaken (in the Remove-ADGroupMember) for a positional parameter, not the value to be used for the named parameter -Server. "XXXX" cannot be converted to a security principal to be used as the "identity" of the group.

Perhaps the problem isn't with either editor but with a different version of PowerShell used by VS Code and PowerShell ISE? In any case, the real problem is that you've incorrectly mixed positional and named parameters.