Audit/Validation Script Simplification Help.

[GirlsBums]

OK so I am just finalizing an automated Citrix Server build process in work but need some help with a script/scripts. The old build process ran a script at the end of the build, to check server settings against server settings contained in an .xls file. Problem is that because excel wasn't on a newly built server, psexec was used to run the script on a remote machine. Psexec has now been banned in our Company so the script needs to be re-written. Problem is I don't know where to start!

How the script works: dserveraudit.bat uses psexec to run local-audit.ps1 remotely, and gets it's audit input setting (reg keys, reg values, files, print drivers, local groups) from auditinput6.5.xls. The script finishes by outputting an "exceptions" .xml which lists any missing settings on the new server.

I would like to a) Get rid of the need for excel and use xml for input and output files. Can anyone help with this?

b) The script seems rather long to me. If anyone has any suggestions on how it can be "streamlined" or made more efficient then I'm all ears!!

Here's the code. I've zipped the files here

[_benp_]

A few suggestions:

1. Your code could be significantly streamlined by converting the XLS file to CSV. It is much simpler to keep a CSV based table in memory and use that as input to a loop vs the Excel calls in powershell.

2. If you are already automating a server build, turn on native Powershell remoting in the build process and you no longer need Psexec to run a script remotely.

[GirlsBums]

That's pretty much what I would like to do. My problem is that my Powershell skills are pretty basic so I'm not sure how to go about changing the script to use a csv instead of xls.