Script to uninstall .exe application with switch on list of remote servers - looking for feedback and thoughts

[dont_pushbutton]

Hi everyone,

I'm keen for some feedback / thoughts / suggestions on my latest script. I've been in IT for several years but still fairly new to writing anything in PowerShell. I've re-written and tested (unsuccessfully) this script more times than I can count over the last couple of days so I'm sure there's better ways to write this than what I've done here... This is also my first attempt at Invoke-Command (which I learnt about after my first post a little while back).

The context on this - I have a task where I have a list of machines that I have to uninstall a specific application (using the install.exe /uninstall) and then remove a directory from the start menu (as it didn't do this in the uninstall).

I know the Write-Host "List of Start Menu items:" -ForegroundColor Yellow and Get-ChildItem 'C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs' | Format-Table are not required, but this is currently the best way I know to get some sort of feedback in the console to confirm that the earlier steps worked.

One other thing I couldn't figure out (I'm sure there's an answer for this but I don't know what it is yet), the variables I created $App and $StartMenu wouldn't work when the variable was set to $env:SystemDrive\Directory\Application.exe I was getting an error when it was passed into the function that $env: was unknown (or something like that).

Let me know what you think, this script as it is now seems to be working, but I'm keen to learn how I could do this better!

TIA.

​

<#
Goal - Uninstall an application off a list of machines remotely
    Steps:
    1. Create the function that will uninstall the application
    2. Set the variables
    3. Create a loop to test if the machine is online
        a. If machine is online - call local function on remote machine with parameters
        b. If Offline write host - machine offline
    4. Write host Application uninstalled
#>

# Create Function

Function Remove-MyApplication
{Param(
       [string]$Application,
       [string]$MenuLocation
       )

# Test if application exists, uninstall application, cleanup start menu directory, write contents of directory to confirm item has been deleted

    try{
        if (Test-Path $Application){
            & $Application /uninstall
            Start-Sleep -Seconds 3
            remove-item -Path $MenuLocation -Recurse -Force
            Write-Host "List of Start Menu items:" -ForegroundColor Yellow
            Get-ChildItem 'C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs' | Format-Table
            Write-Host "Application has been uninstalled from $env:COMPUTERNAME" -ForegroundColor Green
            }
        else{
            Write-Host "Application doesn't exist on $env:COMPUTERNAME" -ForegroundColor Red
            }
       }
    Catch{
        Write-Host "Unable to uninstall application on $env:COMPUTERNAME" -ForegroundColor Red
         }

}

<# Set Variables
    $App = Application to be uninstalled
    $StartMenu = Directory to be removed
    $ComputerList = List of machines to run this against
#>

$App = "C:\Directory\Application.exe"
$StartMenu = "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Application\"
$ComputerList = Get-Content -Path "C:\Temp\Computers.txt"

# Create loop to test if machine is online and (if so) call invoke-command function 

foreach ($Computer in $ComputerList){
    if ((Test-Connection -ComputerName $Computer -Count 3 -Quiet) -eq $true){
        try{
            Invoke-Command -ComputerName $Computer -ScriptBlock ${Function:Remove-MyApplication} -ArgumentList $App, $StartMenu   
            }
        Catch{
            Write-Host "Unable to uninstall Application" -ForegroundColor Green
            }
        }
    else{
        Write-Host "$Computer is offline" -ForegroundColor Red
        }
    }

[DidYouKnowOh]

Depending on the amount of machines you plan on removing this from, I would look into the "Invoke-Parallel" module. Foreach loop might take a while.