One piece of the puzzle is that PowerShell remains open if you do it the way I have it setup right now.  If the user closes that PowerShell window, then the monitor process will not close Outlook when the user exits the LOB app.  In order to mitigate this issue somewhat, I wanted to start PowerShell minimized.  The way to do this is:

powershell -WindowStyle Minimized .\ScriptToRun.ps1

Import-Module -Name ActiveDirectory

Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=YourOUName,DC=YourDomain,DC=COM" -properties ScriptPath | Export-Csv "c:\script\ADUser.csv"

Note: In order for this to work, you have to have the ActiveDirectory Module loaded. 

$CheckForFile = "H:\custom.ini"
$FileToCopy = "c:\IT\custom.ini"
$CopyFileTo = "H:\"

$PathTest = Test-Path $CheckForFile
If ($PathTest -eq "false")
    {
    Copy-Item $FileToCopy $CopyFileTo
    }

#uses the Invoke-Item command to launch the application
Invoke-Item "C:\Program Files\executable to launch.exe"

This is for use in a Citrix/Terminal Server environment, so I want to be able to call this script like this: PowerShell copythenlaunch.ps1

When I tested that, I got this:

C:\IT>powershell copythenlaunch.ps1
The term ‘copythenlaunch.ps1′ is not recognized as a cmdlet, function, operable
program, or script file. Verify the term and try again.
At line:1 char:18
+ copythenlaunch.ps1 <<<<

I kept thinking there was some problem with the install of PowerShell (I am running this particular script on a Windows 2003 Server) or that I had some illegal character in the name (it had a number in it originally) or some other simple problem.  Finally I did a search and came across this little bit of conversation:

re: Power and Pith

I just started with PowerShell.

Wanted to run some test scripts from you download.

When I tpye in Beep.ps1 I get "The term ‘Beep.1′ is not recognized….."

What Am I doing wrong?

Friday, December 29, 2006 3:17 PM by MikeL

# re: Power and Pith

> When I tpye in Beep.ps1 I get "The term ‘Beep.1′ is not recognized….."

> What Am I doing wrong?

You are relying upon a traditional bad shell behaviour that has been a security nightmere for decades.

In PowerShell, you have to be explicit if you want to run a command in the current directory.  Type ".\beep.ps1"

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]

Windows PowerShell/MMC Architect

Visit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at:    http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell

Visit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at:  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx

Friday, December 29, 2006 5:19 PM by PowerShellTeam

# re: Power and Pith

Thank You for supplying the ".\*" information.  I have been racking my brain for almost two days wondering what I was doing wrong.  And to think it was as simple as using the PROPER .\yourscripthere.ps1 format.

Thank you very very much

Ditto on the thanks…

Windows PowerShell Blog : Power and Pith

When confirmation is turned on by $ConfirmPreference, you can turn it off for any individual cmdlet invocation using "-Confirm:$false".  You can also use "-Confirm:$false" to turn off default confirmation for high impact cmdlets such as Removing a Mailbox.  Another way to turn off confirmation is by setting $ConfirmPreference to "None"; you can limit the effect by setting $script:ConfirmPreference etc, see "get-help about_scope" for more details.

For more details and options besides just turning it off, go see the original post:

Windows PowerShell Blog : ConfirmPreference

$strCategory = “computer”
$strOperatingSystem = “Windows*Server*”

$objDomain = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry

$objSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher
$objSearcher.SearchRoot = $objDomain

$objSearcher.Filter = (“OperatingSystem=$strOperatingSystem”)

$colProplist = “name”
foreach ($i in $colPropList){$objSearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add($i)}

$colResults = $objSearcher.FindAll()
Write-Host $colResults.count
foreach ($objResult in $colResults)
    {
    $objComputer = $objResult.Properties;
    $objComputer.name
    }

If you change the $strOperatingSystem = “Windows*Server*” to something like $strOperatingSystem = “Windows*”  it will return all computer accounts that have “Windows” in the Name field on the Operating System tab of the properties of the AD object:

http://blogs.msdn.com/kalleb/archive/2008/07/19/using-powershell-to-read-xml-files.aspx

Which contained the key to helping me with what I needed to do.  The specific piece I needed was in Lesson 2:

Lesson 2:
Read data from an XML-file.
The XML-file that I’m going to read from has the following structure:
<Users>
  <User>
    <Name>Kalle</Name>
</User>
  <User>
    <Name>Becker</Name>
  </User>
</Users>
Reading data from an XML-file is really easy in PowerShell! Use this command to load the file into an variable:
PS C:\Tmp> [xml]$userfile = Get-Content Accounts.xml

When the xml-file is loaded you can type “$userfile.U” and press tab to get auto completion!! It’s a breeze.

The trick is that you have to actually READ what is in front of you.  The key here is to let PowerShell know that you are reading an xml file, and that is done by placing [xml] prior to getting the content.  I missed that the first six times I read this and couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting the results I expected.

We don’t store or report on VMs currently, mainly because we were trying to keep track of total REAL disk used.  VMs often don’t use as much as they think they do, so that would skew the results, as well as the fact that we are reporting on the hosts. 

All of that is the reason that Patrick asked me to come up with some other tool to use for the VMs so I happened to find a few pieces of PowerShell script that I managed to put together to do a pretty good job of providing some of the info we wanted, and I thought I would share that with the 2 people who read my blog. 

$servers = Get-Content servers.txt

#Open Excel and create a new workbook and worksheet
$ExcelSheet=New-Object -comobject Excel.application   
$WorkBook=$ExcelSheet.WorkBooks.add(1)    
$WorkSheet=$WorkBook.WorkSheets.item(1)               

#Header row
$WorkSheet.cells.item(1,1)=”Computer Name”               
$WorkSheet.cells.item(1,2)=”Disk Device ID”              
$WorkSheet.cells.item(1,3)=”Volume Name”                 
$WorkSheet.cells.item(1,4)=”Size (GB)”        
$WorkSheet.cells.item(1,5)=”Free Space (GB)”
$WorkSheet.cells.item(1,6)=”Space Used (GB)”
$WorkSheet.cells.item(1,7)=”Percent Used”

$i=2

ForEach ($ComputerName in $servers)
{   
    echo "Server Name : ", $ComputerName
    $Disks = gwmi –computername $ComputerName win32_logicaldisk -filter "drivetype=3"

    foreach ($Disk in $Disks)
    {
        $Size = "{0:0.0}" -f ($Disk.Size/1GB)
        $FreeSpace = "{0:0.0}" -f ($Disk.FreeSpace/1GB)
        $Used = ([int64]$Disk.size – [int64]$Disk.freespace)
        $SpaceUsed = "{0:0.0}" -f ($Used/1GB)
        $Percent = ($Used * 100.0)/$Disk.Size
        $Percent = "{0:N0}" -f $Percent
               $WorkSheet.cells.item($i,1)=$ComputerName
            $WorkSheet.cells.item($i,2)=$Disk.deviceid
            $WorkSheet.cells.item($i,3)=$Disk.volumename
            $WorkSheet.cells.item($i,4)=$Size
            $WorkSheet.cells.item($i,5)=$FreeSpace
            $WorkSheet.cells.item($i,6)=$SpaceUsed
            $WorkSheet.cells.item($i,7)=$Percent

            $i=$i+1     
    }
}
#Show the results
$ExcelSheet.visible=$true

The fix that Microsoft developed is here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=aee949aa-d3e7-4b0f-b718-00b7c20f1257&displayLang=en

A few people have asked for the PowerShell script “show-pruneshadowcopies.ps1” that Microsoft provided and I mentioned in my previous post (here).  The script looks like this:

#displays all RP for data sources and shows which RP’s would be deleted by the regular pruneshadowcopies.ps1
# Outputs to a logfile:  C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin\SHOW-PRUNESHADOWCOPIES.LOG

#Author    : Mike J
#Date    : 02/24/2009
$version="V1.0"

$date=get-date
$logfile="SHOW-PRUNESHADOWCOPIES.LOG.txt"

function GetDistinctDays([Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.ObjectModel.OMCommon.ProtectionGroup] $group,
[Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.ObjectModel.OMCommon.Datasource] $ds)
{   
    if($group.ProtectionType -eq [Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.ObjectModel.OMCommon.ProtectionType]::DiskToTape)
    {
        return 0
    }
    $scheduleList = get-policyschedule -ProtectionGroup $group -ShortTerm
    if($ds -is [Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.ObjectModel.FileSystem.FsDataSource])
    {
        $jobType = [Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.Intent.JobTypeType]::ShadowCopy
    }
    else
    {
        $jobType = [Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.Intent.JobTypeType]::FullReplicationForApplication
        if($ds.ProtectionType -eq [Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.Intent.ReplicaProtectionType]::ProtectFromDPM)
        {           
            return 2
        }
    }
    write-host   "Look for jobType $jobType"

    foreach($schedule in $scheduleList)
    {
        write-host("schedule jobType {0}" -f $schedule.JobType)
        if($schedule.JobType -eq $jobType)
        {
            return [Math]::Ceiling(($schedule.WeekDays.Length * $ds.RecoveryRangeinDays) / 7)
        }
    }

    return 0
}

function IsShadowCopyExternal($id)
{
    $result = $false;

    $ctx = New-Object -Typename Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.DB.SqlContext
    $ctx.Open()

    $cmd = $ctx.CreateCommand()
    $cmd.CommandText = "select COUNT(*) from tbl_RM_ShadowCopy where shadowcopyid = ‘$id’"  
    write-host $cmd.CommandText
    $countObj = $cmd.ExecuteScalar()
    write-host $countObj
    if ($countObj -eq 0)
    {
        $result = $true
    }
    $cmd.Dispose()
    $ctx.Close()

    return $result
}

function IsShadowCopyInUse($id)
{
    $result = $true;

    $ctx = New-Object -Typename Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.DB.SqlContext
    $ctx.Open()

    $cmd = $ctx.CreateCommand()
    $cmd.CommandText = "select ArchiveTaskId, RecoveryJobId from tbl_RM_ShadowCopy where ShadowCopyId = ‘$id’"  
    write-host $cmd.CommandText
    $reader = $cmd.ExecuteReader()
    while($reader.Read())
    {
        if ($reader.IsDBNull(0) -and $reader.IsDBNull(1))
        {
            $result = $false
        }
    }
    $cmd.Dispose()
    $ctx.Close()

    return $result
}

"**********************************" > $logfile
"Version $version" >> $logfile
get-date >> $logfile

$dpmservername = &"hostname"

$dpmsrv = connect-dpmserver $dpmservername

if (!$dpmsrv)
{
    write-host "Unable to connect to $dpmservername"
    exit 1
}

write-host $dpmservername
"Selected DPM server = $DPMservername" >> $logfile
$pgList = get-protectiongroup $dpmservername
if (!$pgList)
{
    write-host   "No PGs found"
    disconnect-dpmserver $dpmservername
    exit 2
}

write-host("Number of ProtectionGroups = {0}" -f $pgList.Length)
$replicaList = @{}
$latestScDateList = @{}

foreach($pg in $pgList)
{
    $dslist = get-datasource $pg
    if ($dslist.length -gt 0)
    {
    write-host("Number of datasources in this PG = {0}" -f $dslist.length)
    ("Number of datasources in this PG = {0}" -f $dslist.length) >> $logfile
     }
    Foreach ($ds in $dslist)
    {
       write-host("DS NAME=  $ds")
       ("DS NAME=  $ds") >>$logfile
    }
    foreach ($ds in $dslist)
    {       
        $rplist = get-recoverypoint $ds | where { $_.DataLocation -eq ‘Disk’ }
        write-host("Number of recovery points for $ds {0}" -f $rplist.length)
        ("Number of recovery points for $ds {0}" -f $rplist.length) >>$logfile 
        $countDistinctDays = GetDistinctDays $pg $ds
        write-host("Number of days with fulls = $countDistinctDays")
        ("Number of days with fulls = $countDistinctDays") >>$logfile
        if($countDistinctDays -eq 0)
        {
            write-host   "D2T PG. No recovery points to delete"
            "D2T PG. No recovery points to delete" >>$logfile
            continue;
        }
        $replicaList[$ds.ReplicaPath] = $ds.RecoveryRangeinDays
        $latestScDateList[$ds.ReplicaPath] = new-object DateTime 0,0
        $lastDayOfRetentionRange = ([DateTime]::UtcNow).AddDays($ds.RecoveryRangeinDays * -1);       
        write-host("Distinct days to count = {0}. LastDayOfRetentionRange = {1} " -f $countDistinctDays, $lastDayOfRetentionRange)
        ("Distinct days to count = {0}. LastDayOfRetentionRange = {1} " -f $countDistinctDays, $lastDayOfRetentionRange) >>$logfile
        $distinctDays = 0;
        $lastDistinctDay = (get-Date).Date
        $numberOfRecoveryPointsDeleted = 0

        if ($rplist)
        {
            foreach ($rp in ($rplist | sort-object -property UtcRepresentedPointInTime -descending))
            {                       
                if ($rp)
                {                   
                    if ($rp.UtcRepresentedPointInTime.Date -lt $lastDistinctDay)
                    {
                        $distinctDays += 1
                        $lastDistinctDay = $rp.UtcRepresentedPointInTime.Date
                    }
                    write-host(" $ds")
                    (" $ds") >>$logfile
                    write-host("  Recovery Point #$distinctdays RPtime={0}" -f $rp.UtcRepresentedPointInTime)
                    ("  Recovery Point #$distinctdays RPtime={0}" -f $rp.UtcRepresentedPointInTime) >>$logfile
                    if (($distinctDays -gt $countDistinctDays) -and ($rp.UtcRepresentedPointInTime -lt $lastDayOfRetentionRange))
                    {
                        write-host ("Recovery Point would be deleted ! – RPtime={0}" -f $rp.UtcRepresentedPointInTime)  -foregroundcolor red
                        ("Recovery Point would be deleted ! – RPtime={0} <<<<<<<" -f $rp.UtcRepresentedPointInTime) >>$logfile
#remove-recoverypoint $rp -ForceDeletion -confirm:$true | out-null
                        $numberOfRecoveryPointsDeleted += 1
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        write-host "    Recovery point not expired yet"
                        "    Recovery point not yet expired" >>$logfile
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    write-host "Got a NULL rp"
                    "Got a NULL rp" >>$logfile
                }   
            }

            write-host "Number of RPs that would be deleted = $numberOfRecoveryPointsDeleted"  
            "Number of RPs that would be deleted = $numberOfRecoveryPointsDeleted" >>$logfile            
        }
    }
}

disconnect-dpmserver $dpmservername
write-host "Exiting from script"

exit

I have 3 production DPM servers.  One of them has a large number of protection group members.  8 Protection Groups, 328 Members.  And that is just to protect 39 computers, but one of the SQL servers has about 150 databases.

I noticed the problem because I kept running out of space on the Recovery Point volumes.  I had a particular 2008 Domain Controller that the system state recovery point volume would have to be extended every couple of days.  I was keeping the recovery points on disk for 5 days, so it finally occurred to me that it should take more that 200 GB to keep 5 days work of recovery points for the system state. 

I called and opened a ticket with Microsoft and we have been working on this for almost 2 months.  So far, the best that I can tell is that the process that clears the old recovery points slowly eats up memory.  This coupled with the fact that I have a lot of PG members, and means that the job frequently fails before it completes.  If the number of recovery points continues to grow, the job that clears them (pruneshadowcopies) takes longer and takes more memory.  This increases the chance that it will fail…

I don’t have a solution to this problem yet, other than a few work-arounds and a way to manually run the process:

• add more RAM to your DPM Server.  Especially if you are running SQL locally on the box.
• reduce the number of PG members.  Fewer members, less recovery points, less chance the prune job will fail.
• open the DPM Management Shell (DPM PowerShell) and run “pruneshadowcopies.ps1”.  This will manually run the job that is triggered by DPM at midnight every night.  If you have a lot of recovery points that haven’t been pruned, then this will probably fail (crash) a few times before it finishes.  I have had it run all weekend before and then crash, and I have seen it run for just an hour and then crash.  Keep running it, and it will eventually finish. 
• Hope that Microsoft comes up with a real fix soon…

To see if you have this problem, there is a version of the pruneshadowcopies script that just shows the recovery points, without actually expiring them.  The tech that I have been working with on my case sent it to me. 

1. Copy the latest agent files from C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Agents\RA and put them somewhere you can get to them. 
2. Run the DPMAgentInstaller from the appropriate directory,  amd64\1033 or i386\1033 depending on if you have a x64 or x86 system.
3. On the Production server (the machine you want to protect) run %PROGRAMFILES%Microsoft data protection manager\dpm\bin\setdpmserver -dpmservername <DPM server name>
4. On the DPM server, open the DPM Management Shell (the PowerShell interface for DPM) and run attach-productionserver.ps1.  This will ask you for the DPMServer, PSName (the production machine that you want to protect), UserName (an administrator on the client machine), Password, and Domain.
5. Refresh the view in the DPM administrator console.

You should see your production servers listed in the Managemt\Agents view.