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Remove-CimInstance

  • Reference
Module:
CimCmdlets

Removes a CIM instance from a computer.

Syntax

Remove-CimInstance
      [-ResourceUri <Uri>]
      [-ComputerName <String[]>]
      [-OperationTimeoutSec <UInt32>]
      [-InputObject] <CimInstance>
      [-WhatIf]
      [-Confirm]
      [<CommonParameters>]
Remove-CimInstance
      -CimSession <CimSession[]>
      [-ResourceUri <Uri>]
      [-OperationTimeoutSec <UInt32>]
      [-InputObject] <CimInstance>
      [-WhatIf]
      [-Confirm]
      [<CommonParameters>]
Remove-CimInstance
      -CimSession <CimSession[]>
      [[-Namespace] <String>]
      [-OperationTimeoutSec <UInt32>]
      [-Query] <String>
      [-QueryDialect <String>]
      [-WhatIf]
      [-Confirm]
      [<CommonParameters>]
Remove-CimInstance
      [-ComputerName <String[]>]
      [[-Namespace] <String>]
      [-OperationTimeoutSec <UInt32>]
      [-Query] <String>
      [-QueryDialect <String>]
      [-WhatIf]
      [-Confirm]
      [<CommonParameters>]

Description

This cmdlet is only available on the Windows platform.

This cmdlet removes a CIM instance from a CIM server. You can specify the CIM instance to remove by using either a CIM instance object retrieved by the Get-CimInstance cmdlet, or by specifying a query.

If the InputObject parameter is not specified, the cmdlet works in one of the following ways:

  • If neither the ComputerName parameter nor the CimSession parameter is specified, then this cmdlet works on local Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) using a Component Object Model (COM) session.
  • If either the ComputerName parameter or the CimSession parameter is specified, then this cmdlet works against the CIM server specified by either the ComputerName parameter or the CimSession parameter.

Examples

Example 1: Remove the CIM instance

This example use the Query parameter to remove CIM instances from the class named Win32_Environment that start with the character string testvar .

Remove-CimInstance -Query 'Select * from Win32_Environment where name LIKE "testvar%"'

Example 2: Remove the CIM instance using CIM instance object

This example retrieves the CIM instance objects filtered by the Query parameter and stores them in variable named $var using the Get-CimInstance cmdlet. The contents of the variable are then passed to the Remove-CimInstance cmdlet, which removes the CIM instances.

notepad.exe
$var = Get-CimInstance -Query 'Select * from Win32_Process where name LIKE "notepad%"'
Remove-CimInstance -InputObject $var

Parameters

-CimSession

Runs the command using the specified CIM session. Enter a variable that contains the CIM session, or a command that creates or gets the CIM session, such as the New-CimSession or Get-CimSession cmdlets. For more information, see about_CimSession.

Type:CimSession[]
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:True
Accept wildcard characters:False

-ComputerName

Specifies the name of the computer on which you want to run the CIM operation. You can specify a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or a NetBIOS name.

If you specify this parameter, the cmdlet creates a temporary session to the specified computer using the WsMan protocol.

If you do not specify this parameter, the cmdlet performs the operation on the local computer using Component Object Model (COM).

If multiple operations are being performed on the same computer, connecting using a CIM session gives better performance.

Type:String[]
Aliases:CN, ServerName
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-Confirm

Prompts you for confirmation before running the cmdlet.

Type:SwitchParameter
Aliases:cf
Position:Named
Default value:False
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-InputObject

Specifies a CIM instance object to be removed from the CIM server. The object passed to the cmdlet is not changed, only the instance in the CIM server is removed.

The InputObject parameter doesn't enumerate over collections. If a collection is passed, an error is thrown. When working with collections, pipe the input to enumerate the values.

Type:CimInstance
Aliases:CimInstance
Position:1
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:True
Accept wildcard characters:False

-Namespace

Specifies the namespace for the CIM operation. The default namespace is root/cimv2. You can use tab completion to browse the list of namespaces, because PowerShell gets a list of namespaces from the local WMI server to provide the list of namespaces.

Type:String
Position:2
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:True
Accept wildcard characters:False

-OperationTimeoutSec

Specifies the amount of time that the cmdlet waits for a response from the computer. By default, the value of this parameter is 0, which means that the cmdlet uses the default timeout value for the server.

If the OperationTimeoutSec parameter is set to a value less than the robust connection retry timeout of 3 minutes, network failures that last more than the value of the OperationTimeoutSec parameter are not recoverable, because the operation on the server times out before the client can reconnect.

Type:UInt32
Aliases:OT
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-Query

Specifies a query to run on the CIM server. You can specify the query dialect using the QueryDialect parameter.

If the value specified contains double quotes ("), single quotes ('), or a backslash (\), you must escape those characters by prefixing them with the backslash (\) character. If the value specified uses the WQL LIKE operator, then you must escape the following characters by enclosing them in square brackets ([]): percent (%), underscore (_), or opening square bracket ([).

Type:String
Position:1
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:True
Accept wildcard characters:False

-QueryDialect

Specifies the query language used for the Query parameter. The acceptable values for this parameter are: WQL or CQL. The default value is WQL.

Type:String
Position:Named
Default value:WQL
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:True
Accept wildcard characters:False

-ResourceUri

Specifies the resource uniform resource identifier (URI) of the resource class or instance. The URI is used to identify a specific type of resource, such as disks or processes, on a computer.

A URI consists of a prefix and a path to a resource. For example:

  • http://schemas.microsoft.com/wbem/wsman/1/wmi/root/cimv2/Win32_LogicalDisk
  • http://intel.com/wbem/wscim/1/amt-schema/1/AMT_GeneralSettings

By default, if you do not specify this parameter, the DMTF standard resource URI http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-schema/2/ is used and the class name is appended to it.

ResourceURI can only be used with CIM sessions created using the WSMan protocol, or when specifying the ComputerName parameter, which creates a CIM session using WSMan. If you specify this parameter without specifying the ComputerName parameter, or if you specify a CIM session created using DCOM protocol, you get an error, because the DCOM protocol does not support the ResourceURI parameter.

If both the ResourceUri parameter and the Filter parameter are specified, the Filter parameter is ignored.

Type:Uri
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:True
Accept wildcard characters:False

-WhatIf

Shows what would happen if the cmdlet runs. The cmdlet is not run.

Type:SwitchParameter
Aliases:wi
Position:Named
Default value:False
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

Inputs

None

You can't pipe objects to this cmdlet.

Outputs

None

This cmdlet returns no output.

Notes

PowerShell includes the following aliases for Remove-CimInstance:

  • Windows:
    • rcim

This cmdlet is only available on Windows platforms.