Getting volume data with PowerShell

It has always irritated me that I cannot export data from the disk management snap-in in Windows. Take this example from an Exchange server:

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It would be very nice to be able to export this data to a CSV to create a quick storage report. Unfortunately you can’t. But with PowerShell you can!

This command will export the same data:

Get-WmiObject win32_volume | select Name,Label,@{Name=”Capacity (GB)”; Expression={“{0:N2}” –f ($_.capacity/1GB)}},@{Name=”Free Space (GB)”; Expression={“{0:N2}” -f ($_.freespace/1GB)}},@{Name=”Used Space (GB)”; Expression={“{0:N2}” -f ( ($_.capacity/1GB) – ($_.freespace/1GB) ) }} | ft –AutoSize

The result:

Name        Label        Capacity (GB) Free Space (GB) Used Space (GB)
—-        —–        ————- ————— —————
C:                      72,50         18,17           54,33
E:LogLUN1 ExchangeLogs 1 249,87      1 245,32        4,55
E:         Exchange     0,97          0,93            0,03
E:DBLUN1  DBLUN1       2 046,87      1 358,92        687,95
E:DBLUN2  DBLUN2       2 046,87      1 467,69        579,19
E:DBLUN3  DBLUN3       2 046,87      1 527,84        519,03
E:DBLUN4  DBLUN4       499,87        375,19          124,68

Of course, you can export this to CSV etc.

Enabling Windows Search on Windows Server 2008 R2

As with Windows Server 2008, Windows Search is included as part of the OS and can be installed through Server Manager or PowerShell. Unfortunately it is located in a not quite intuitive place…

To enable Windows Search on Windows Server 2008 R2 you must start the Add Roles wizard and then select File Services Role, on the Role Services page you will find Windows Search:

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The Role Service File Server is selected by default, so if you only want Windows Search uncheck it.

To use PowerShell to install Windows Search run:

Add-WindowsFeature FS-Search-Service

(Remember to do ImportSystemModules first.)

Group Policy WMI filters

WMI filters are useful to further filter Group Policy Objects (GPOs), beyond what is possible/convenient with groups.

Distinguish between x86 and x64 computers:

x86

Select AddressWidth from Win32_Processor where (AddressWidth=”32″)

x64

Select AddressWidth from Win32_Processor where (AddressWidth=”64″)

Determine Windows version:

Use this filter to determine the Windows version and role:

select * from Win32_OperatingSystem where Version like “6.%” and ProductType = “1”

  • The Version property returns values that begin with the following characters (the % symbol is a wildcard character that represents other characters that can follow, but do not help distinguish the version number):
    Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 6.1%
    Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista 6.0%
    Windows Server 2003 5.2%
    Windows XP 5.1%
    Windows 2000 5.0%
  • The ProductType property returns the following values:
    Client versions of Windows 1
    Server versions of Windows that are operating as a domain controller 2
    Server versions of Windows that are not operating as a domain controller (typically referred to as member servers) 3

Determine computer type (laptop, desktop etc.)

NOTE: The PCSystemType property in only available on Windows Vista and later OSs.

SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem WHERE PCSystemType = 1

These are the possible values for PCSystemType:

Value Meaning
0 Unspecified
1 Desktop
2 Mobile
3 Workstation
4 Enterprise Server
5 Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) Server
6 Appliance PC
7 Performance Server
8 Maximum

(I’d really like a computer with type 8, please!)