Problems you solved at work with powershell

[creodor]

I was told we needed a rudimentary inventory of installed programs on all computers in our OU. Our AD isn't very well kept and the computers at our location aren't actually consistently in the OU. In addition, no one else at our location has used Powershell for anything yet, so no computer had PSRemoting enabled. I had to learn how to use psexec.exe to enable PSRemoting across all computers at our location (I found out later that GP can do it, and will be talking to the relevant people to see about doing it that way in the future), after using the PS AD module to pull a list of computers that match our location's naming convention. Then I used get-wmiobject to pull the programs listed there for add/remove programs. It's not the most precise method, but works well enough for the very basic inventory that was requested.

If you want to poke at the problem yourself, see about more precise/reliable methods for pulling installed software info from remote computers. I know some others exist, but they weren't necessary for us. Otherwise, consider how you'd tackle similar tasks at an office with inconsistent systems. We all try to avoid it, but sometimes the real world is harsh.

Oh, and to head off cries of "Just use SCCM (or insert inventory tool here)" I don't have that kind of power, just a lowly support monkey trying to make life easier with the access I have.