3. Gathering the Information

I’m a big fan of modular programming. Big, big fan. With that in mind, I tend to write functions that gather the information I want to be in my report - and I’ll usually do one function per major section of my report. You’ll see in a bit how that’s beneficial. By writing each function individually, I make it easier to use that same information in other tasks, and I make it easier to debug each one. The trick is to have each function output a single type of object that combines all of the information for that report section. I’ve created five functions, which I’ve pasted into a single script file. I’ll give you each of those functions one at a time, with a brief commentary for each. Here’s the first:

function Get-InfoOS {     [CmdletBinding()]     param(         [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)][string]$ComputerName     )     $os = Get-WmiObject -class Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName $ComputerName     $props = @{'OSVersion'=$os.version;                'SPVersion'=$os.servicepackmajorversion;                'OSBuild'=$os.buildnumber}     New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $props }

This is a straightforward function, and the main reason I bothered to even make it a function - as opposed to just using Get-WmiObject directly - is that I want different property names, like “OSVersion” instead of just “Version.” That said, I tend to follow this exact same programming pattern for all info-retrieval functions, just to keep them consistent.

function Get-InfoCompSystem {     [CmdletBinding()]     param(         [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)][string]$ComputerName     )     $cs = Get-WmiObject -class Win32_ComputerSystem -ComputerName $ComputerName     $props = @{'Model'=$cs.model;                'Manufacturer'=$cs.manufacturer;                'RAM (GB)'="{0:N2}" -f ($cs.totalphysicalmemory / 1GB);                'Sockets'=$cs.numberofprocessors;                'Cores'=$cs.numberoflogicalprocessors}     New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $props }

Very similar to the last one. You’ll notice here that I’m using the -f formatting operator with the RAM property, so that I get a value in gigabytes with 2 decimal places. The native value is in bytes, which isn’t useful for me.

function Get-InfoBadService {     [CmdletBinding()]     param(         [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)][string]$ComputerName     )     $svcs = Get-WmiObject -class Win32_Service -ComputerName $ComputerName `            -Filter "StartMode='Auto' AND State<>'Running'"     foreach ($svc in $svcs) {         $props = @{'ServiceName'=$svc.name;                    'LogonAccount'=$svc.startname;                    'DisplayName'=$svc.displayname}         New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $props     } }

Here, I’ve had to recognize that I’ll be getting back more than one object from WMI, so I have to enumerate through them using a ForEach construct. Again, I’m primarily just renaming properties. I absolutely could have done that with a Select-Object command, but I like to keep the overall function structure similar to my other functions. Just a personal preference that helps me include fewer bugs, since I’m used to doing things this way.

````

function Get-InfoProc {

[CmdletBinding()]

Param(

[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)][string]$ComputerName

) $procs = Get-WmiObject -class Win32_Process -ComputerName $ComputerName

foreach ($proc in $procs) {

$props = @{‘ProcName’=$proc.name;

‘Executable’=$proc.ExecutablePath}

New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $props

}

}

function Get-InfoNIC {

[CmdletBinding()]

param(

[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)][string]$ComputerName

)

$nics = Get-WmiObject -class Win32_NetworkAdapter -ComputerName $ComputerName ‘

-Filter “PhysicalAdapter=True”

foreach ($nic in $nics) {

$props = @{‘NICName’=$nic.servicename;

‘Speed’=$nic.speed / 1MB -as [int];

‘Manufacturer’=$nic.manufacturer;

‘MACAddress’=$nic.macaddress}

New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $props

}

}