Try/Catch inside ForEach If/Else Loop

Question

Hello,

I am fairly new to PowerShell and am drawing a blank on what a Try/Catch is not running when part of an If/Else inside of a ForEach loop. I am working to automate license collections (partial key only) of existing and new client devices when onboarding new environments as part of my job at an MSP. The script runs the ForEach fine and collects the info I'm looking for, but it's ignoring the IF/ELSE and TRY/CATCH, so we keep getting duplicate entries in the resulting CSV and we're not getting an exceptions log to see what systems are not responding to requests for information.

The end goal is to remove the $cred variable and setup a scheduled task to run twice a day to eventually collect all device licensing info to hand off to the business for software inventory among other things. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I'm assuming this is either a syntax issue or my own ignorance of how these commands run.

Clear-Host

$DomName = Get-ADDomain |Select -Expand NetBIOSName

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path C:\TEMP\${DomName}_Onboarding\${DomName}_ServerLicensing\

Get-ADComputer -Filter {(OperatingSystem -Like '*Server*') -AND (Enabled -Eq 'TRUE')}|Select -Expand Name|Out-File C:\TEMP\${DomName}_Onboarding\${DomName}_ServerLicensing\Servers.txt

$cred=Get-Credential

$servers = Get-Content C:\TEMP\${DomName}_Onboarding\${DomName}_ServerLicensing\Servers.txt    
$collected = Get-Content C:\TEMP\${DomName}_Onboarding\${DomName}_ServerLicensing\PS_MSOLicenses.csv

 foreach ($server in $servers)
 {
 if ($server -in $collected.PSComputerName)
 {
 Write-Host "$server information already collected."
 }
 else
 {
 Write-Host "$server information NOT yet collected."

try {

(Get-WmiObject -Class SoftwareLicensingProduct -Filter 'ProductKeyId != NULL'-Computername $server) | Select-Object -Property PSComputerName,Name,Description,LicenseFamily,ProductKeyChannel,PartialProductKey |Export-csv C:\TEMP\${DomName}_Onboarding\${DomName}_ServerLicensing\PS_MSOLicenses.csv -NoTypeInformation -Append

}

catch {
       "$server could not be contacted. System may be Windows Server 2008, be offline, or PS Remoting is not enabled." | Out-File -Append C:\TEMP\${DomName}_Onboarding\${DomName}_ServerLicensing\${DomName}_Server_Licensing_Exceptions.csv
    }

 }
 }

Thanks again for any and all assistance.

Answer 1

Does this help? Note the use of import-csv.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/powertip-get-row-from-csv-file-based-on-value/

 $servers = Get-Content C:\TEMP\Servers.txt
 "Here are the servers."
 $servers  
 ""    
 $raw = Get-Content C:\TEMP\Test.csv
 "Here is the raw csv."
 $raw  

 ""
 $collected = Import-Csv C:\TEMP\Test.csv
 "Here is the imported csv."
 $collected  
 ""

  foreach ($server in $servers)  {
      "Looking for $server"
      if ($collected.Where({$PSItem.PSComputername -eq $server})  )   {
          "$server information already collected."
      }  else  {
          "$server information NOT yet collected."
      }
      ""
  }

Some test data produces this and finds test10.

Here are the servers.
localhost
xxxxxxxxx
Test10

Here is the raw csv.
"PSComputername","SomeField","AnotherField"
"AAAAA","11111","aaaaaaa"
"Test10","22222","bbbbb"
"ZZZZZ","33333","ccccc"

Here is the imported csv.

PSComputername SomeField AnotherField
-------------- --------- ------------
AAAAA          11111     aaaaaaa     
Test10         22222     bbbbb       
ZZZZZ          33333     ccccc       

Looking for localhost
localhost information NOT yet collected.

Looking for xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx information NOT yet collected.

Looking for Test10
Test10 information already collected.

Update: to use the -IN operator, the IF statement should be:

 if ($server -in ($collected).pscomputername) {

Answer 2

For the Catch block to be run the Get-WmiObject must generate a terminating error. A simple non-terminating error won't do that.

Adding -ErrorAction STOP to the Get-WmiObject cmdlet will force all errors to be "terminating".

Answer 3

See below for the working script based on the updates provided by @MotoX80 and @Rich Matheisen

Clear-Host  
  
$DomName = Get-ADDomain |Select -Expand NetBIOSName  
  
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path C:\TEMP\ServerLicensing\  
  
Get-ADComputer -Filter {(OperatingSystem -Like '*Server*') -AND (Enabled -Eq 'TRUE')}|Select -Expand Name|Out-File C:\TEMP\ServerLicensing\Servers.txt  
  
## $cred=Get-Credential  
  
## Credit MotoX80 & RichMatheisen-8856  
  
  $servers = Get-Content C:\TEMP\ServerLicensing\Servers.txt  
  "Here are the servers."  
  $servers    
  ""      
  $raw = Get-Content C:\TEMP\ServerLicensing\PS_MSOLicenses.csv  
  "Here is the raw csv."  
  $raw    
       
  ""  
  $collected = Import-Csv C:\TEMP\ServerLicensing\PS_MSOLicenses.csv  
  "Here is the imported csv."  
  $collected    
  ""  
          
   foreach ($server in $servers)  {  
       "Looking for $server"  
       if ($collected.Where({$PSItem.PSComputername -eq $server})  )   {  
           "$server information already collected."  
       }  else  {  
           "$server information NOT yet collected."  
  
try{  
  
(Get-WmiObject -Class SoftwareLicensingProduct -Filter 'ProductKeyId != NULL'-Computername $server -ErrorAction STOP) | Select-Object -Property PSComputerName,Name,Description,LicenseFamily,ProductKeyChannel,PartialProductKey |Export-csv C:\TEMP\ServerLicensing\PS_MSOLicenses.csv -NoTypeInformation -Append  
  
}  
  
catch {  
       "$server could not be contacted. System may be Windows Server 2008, be offline, or PS Remoting is not enabled." | Out-File -Append C:\TEMP\ServerLicensing\Licensing_Exceptions.csv  
    }  
  
       }  
       ""  
   }