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Trying to reach out to one server (by name) and search for the Profile DIR for each username's existence from the list of users, whom I need to delete. After many many attempts, still seeing a result of "$User profile not found." Even though I can see that it is clearly in the DIR. When I run one specific test for one user, it shows up.. example: `

    $DelUser = "user.name"
    $ProfileUser = "\\dc1\P$\Profiles\$DelUser" + ".V6"

    if ([System.IO.Directory]::Exists($ProfileUser)) {
    "......$DelUser..... EXISTS!"

    else {
    "$DelUser Path NOT FOUND!"
    }
    }

Pulling from the source (txt) file (I've also tried using a csv file with import-csv with same results) I try to go through the list and search for the existence of each user folder with the below code. User folders are in the user.name.V6 format. Below a sample with some commented alternate attempts.

    $DelUser = Get-Content -Path C:\DelFolder\Delete-DC1-Users.txt
    $UserPath = "\\DC1\P$\Profiles\$User" + ".V6"

    foreach ($User in $DelUser) {
    if ([System.IO.Directory]::Exists($UserPath)) {
    Write-Host "$UserPath EXISTS"
    #if (Test-Path -Path $UserPath) {
    # if ($UserPath) {
    # Write-Host "$User Folder Exists" 
    }


    else {
    Write-Host "$User Folder DOES NOT EXIST" 
    }
    }

And at best I'll see the $User Folder DOES NOT EXIST even though it does in fact exist on the server.

I've also tried using Test-Path to no avail, as seen above in the commented out lines.

Thank you! P.S. My first posted question here, so my apologies for any mishaps or mistakes!

mklement0
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Feed-Jake
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1 Answers1

2

$UserPath = "\\dc1\P$\Profiles\$User" + ".V6"

Your use of "...", i.e. of an expandable (interpolating) string , means that the reference to variable $User is instantly expanded, resulting in storing a static string in variable $UserPath; that is, you're "baking in" the value of $DelUser at that time (and since $User isn't defined until later, the expansion will will result in the empty string by default).

What you need instead is to move your $UserPath = ... assignment inside your foreach loop so that the "..." is string is re-evaluated in each iteration, based on the then-current value of $User:

$delUser = Get-Content -LiteralPath C:\DelFolder\Delete-DC1-Users.txt

foreach ($user in $delUser) {
  # Determine the path *for the $user at hand*.
  $userPath = "\\DC1\P$\Profiles\$user.V6"
  if (Test-Path -LiteralPath $userPath) {
    "$userPath EXISTS"
  }
  else {
    "$user Folder DOES NOT EXIST" 
  }
}

Note:

  • The ".V6" suffix was folded directly into the "..." string - no need for appending it separately with +.

    • Note that such a suffix is not treated as an attempt to access a property of the $user variable - for the latter, you'd need enclosure in $(...) - see this answer for a summary of PowerShell's string-interpolation rules.

  • It is safer to use -LiteralPath rather than -Path when you know you're dealing with literal (verbatim) paths rather than wildcard expressions.

  • You could add -Type Container to the Test-Path call to limit the test to whether a directory (rather than a file) with the given path exists, though that's probably not necessary here.

  • The Write-Host calls were omitted in favor of implicit output of the strings (implied Write-Output), though note that the former prints directly to the display,[1] whereas the latter produces data output that can be captured.

  • While not enforced, a worthwhile convention to observe is to start the names of regular variables with lowercase letters (e.g, $user) and to only start parameter variables with an uppercase letter (e.g. $Path inside a param(...) block).

Note that there are ways to perform string templating, where string expansion (interpolation) is performed on demand on a technically verbatim string, as shown in this answer.

However, in the case at hand the solution above is simpler.

[1] In PSv5+ Write-Host writes to the information stream, whose output can be captured, but only via 6>.

mklement0
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