Raiders of the Lost VMX

One of the more popular post in the VMTN PowerCLI community is this one HowTo search for all VMX files in all datastores and register them into VC ?

The original script that I provided in the thread is now more than one year old and there seem to be some issues with clusters in a vSphere environment.

Time to re-write the script and make it a bit more userfriendly.

Update 1: there was an issue when scanning empty datastores

Update 2: added the option to find and register Templates

Update 3 – April 29th 2010: added the option to ignore specific folders

Update 4 – April 30th 2010: fixed parent datacenter lookup problem + added -checkNFS and -whatif option

Update 5 – May 2nd 2010: fixed a bug with nested folders and the -ignore parameter

Update 6 – August 6th 2010: minor changes to the parameter testing and the Get-Usage function

Update 7 – August 17th 2010: fixed a bug with the -dsNames option. Thanks to goonzie for reporting the bug

Indiana-hatThis is the latest version of the script

Annotations

Line 15: both parameters (entityName and dsNames) can not be used together.

Line 20-36: if an entityName was given the switch will retrieve the list of datastores.

Line 37-39: if dsNames was used add or remove NFS datastores (depending on the checkNFS switch)

Line 42-67: retrieval of the required parameters for the SearchDatastoreSubFolders_Task and RegisterVM_Task methods

Line 56: if the datastore is shared between several ESX/ESXi servers, the script will take the first server

Line 67-69: the VMConfigFileQuery seems to have a problem finding VMX files on some datastores. That’s why the script uses the MatchPattern property.

Line 71-74: this loop waits for the SearchDatastoreSubFolders_Task to finish. To make sure it looks at the actual value of the Result property, the script calls the UpdateViewData method.

Line 77: this line takes care of folders that should be ignored. Update 5: for nested folders, the script checks each folderpath qualifier against the -ignore parameter.

Line 86: when you’re connected to an ESX/ESXi host the FolderPath property doesn’t have a forward slash as the last character. This line corrects that.

Line 88-93: the RegisterVM_Task method needs different parameters if it is called for a guest or for a template

Line 88 & 91: the RegisterVM_Task method should use the DisplayName field from the VMX file for the name of the VM that will be registered. Unfortunately you can’t pass a $null value for a parameter that is defined as a String. This bypasses that limitation.

Line 94-100: these lines take care of the -whatif switch

Line 109-114: some sample calls to the Register-VMX function

Usage

The function Register-VMX can be called as follows

  1. With the -entityName parameter, where you can pass a datacentername, a clustername or an ESX hostname
    • Register-VMX -entityName “MyCluster”
    • Register-VMX -entityName “MyDatacenter”
    • Register-VMX -entityName “esx1.test.local”
  2. With the -dsNames parameter, where you can pass one or more datastorenames.
    • Register-VMX -dsNames “datastore1”
    • Register-VMX -dsNames “datastore1″,”datastore2″,”datastore3”
  3. With the -template parameter which allows you to specify if you want to register guests ($false) or templates ($true). The default is to register guests.
    • Register-VMX -dsNames “datastore1″,”datastore2″,”datastore3” -template:$true
    • Register-VMX -entityName “MyCluster” -template:$false
  4. With the -ignore parameter which allows you to specify that scripts should not look in specific folders for unregistered VMX files. The default is to look in all folders.
    • Register-VMX -entityName “MyCluster” -ignore “Folder1″,”Folder2”
  5. With the -checkNFS switch which allows you to specify if NFS datastores should be checked as well. The default is to not check NFS datastores.
    • Register-VMX -entityName “MyCluster” -CheckNFS:$true
    • Register-VMX -dsNames “datastore1″,”datastore2″,”datastore3” -CheckNFS:$true
  6. With the -whatif switch set to $true the script will only show the actions and not actually execute them. The default is $false, which means the found .VMX (or .VMTX) files will be registered.
    • Register-VMX -entityName “MyCluster” -whatif:$true

I hope this latest version will make it a bit more stable and user friendly.

87 Comments

    Juan Ruiz

    Hi LucD, script works like a charm this year in the future, great work!; i wonder how can i specify the resource pool to register the vm\’s to, tried declaring the variable ($pool) in several formats with no success, how can it be done?. Thanks

    jooshil

    hi LucD

    anyway we can search the folder and delete it on the Datastore, ..? specifically on the vSAN Datastores

      LucD

      Hi,
      I think I answered your question in https://communities.vmware.com/thread/603735.

      To recap, you can use the FileManager’s DeleteDatastoreFile method to delete a folder + content.

    Jitesh

    Thanks @LucD for the great script.
    Have a point, suppose what if I have few VM’s which are in PowerOff state & have delta’s(maybe in cooling period OR for any reason), Invoking -Delete will delete them as well considering the Files are not in use since long OR it will not touch them? If that’s the case how we can integrate an Exclusion List that searches with VM Name OR any modification in script to avoid removal of same.
    Help Appreciated!!

    ConJdeRumba

    I think that the first switch (Get-Inventory) should be ClusterImpl, DatacenterImpl and VMHostImpl instead Cluster, Datacenter and VMHost

      LucD

      Yes, you are right.
      In the more recent PowerCLI version this seems to have changed. I’ll try to find out in which version, and update the code accordingly.
      Thanks for spotting that.

    Zak

    @LucD

    Can you please help me. I have taken out the hash from # Register-VMX -entityName “MyDatacenter” and entered my own datacenter name but keep getting an error saying

    PowerCLI C:\Zak> .\vm-import.ps1
    Parameters incorrect
    Register-VMX -entityName -dsNames [,…]
    entityName : a cluster-, datacenter or ESX hostname (not together with -dsName
    s)
    dsNames : one or more datastorename names (not together with -entityName)
    ignore : names of folders that shouldn’t be checked
    template : register guests (False)or templates (True) – default : False
    checkNFS : include NFS datastores – default : False
    whatif : when True will only list and not execute – default : False

    Please help

      John

      Hi Zak,

      I got same issue on my infrastructure.
      It seems GetType command return multiple results as same name was used for Datacenter and for the Cluster, which show this error message.

      Workaround:
      Just rename your cluster differently as your Datacenter and script will run fine 🙂

    Sachin0312

    HI Luc,

    I use your script to perfrom the DR activity in my company. Now today i have some different requirement where i have list of Datastores that i want to exclude from the search or browse while registering the VMs

    spyder

    Excellent script thanks alot.
    I’m newbie on powershell and have problems that the script want accepting any parameter ie -dsNames. It never goes into the function register-vmx nor the function get-usage just nothing happens

    If I uncomment the exemple lines with -dsNamed in the end it does everything correctly

    Any tips on what I’m missing

      LucD

      Hi Spyder,
      The Get-Usage function is an internal function, that shouldn’t be called directly.

      Did you copy the function code into a .ps1 file, and then add a line similar to one of the commented out lines at the end ?
      Do you pass a valid datastore name to the dsNames parameter ?
      Is it possible that there are no unregistered VMs on that datastore ?

    Brian Hopkins

    First off amazing script. My question is the following:

    I’m taking everything down for a full outage next week so I can re-ip our NFS storage and will be VLAN’ing some stuff out. My question is will this keep the original folder locations as well when they are added back or is there any way to capture that before I unregister them all so we can easily have them back in the same folder structure as well?

    Thanks

      admin

      Hi, do you mean the VM folder on the datastore, or the blue folder under VMs adn Templates ?
      The 1st on yes, the 2nd one is no.

    Herbert

    Hi LucD,
    thanks for sharing that script; it works really great.
    Sorry for the question, but I’m a PS-dummy and maybe you have time to look at my question.
    I realized, that your script doesn’t work against a single ESXi host (not included in a vCenter environment), because it doesn’t find a DC and DC-Folder.
    I want to register the important machines of a vSphere-environment in a single ESX-host for a DR-szenario.
    I looked at the folder, in which normally the VMs resides (it’s name is “VM”) but the New-VM statement ever gives me error messages, that it can’t find the object “folder-ha-folder-vm”.
    Can you please help me on that?

    Regards

    Herbert

      Herbert

      Hi LucD,
      I’ve found the error.
      The error-message is not refered to the logical folder, but to the folder, in which the vmx-file is located. I had an error in this variable.
      Regards

    Mohammed Sabuwala

    Hi Luc D,

    Can we fetch the datastore names from a CSV file?

    Regards,
    Mohammed

      admin

      Mohammed, that shouldn’t be too difficult.
      Try calling the functions like this.

      Register-VMX -dsNames (Import-Csv c:\dsnames.csv -UseCulture)

      That assumes that the file just contains the datastore names !

    Mohammed Sabuwala

    how can we create a loop so that it queries a CSV file and picks up each datastore and registers the VM’s accordingly, i tried something like below, it registered the VMs but threw a lot of errors:

    $COBdsname = Read-Host “Please enter the Datastore Name”
    #variable to prompt for CSV file path
    $csvfile = Read-Host “Please enter the path to CSV file”
    $vmlist = Import-CSV -path $csvfile

    #variable to match the fields from CSV file
    $COBdsname = $vmlist.datastorename
    $vmname = $vmlist.vmname

    #the below line will loop through each datastore and register the VM’s
    foreach ($COBds in $COBdsname) {
    Register-VMX -dsNames $COBds -CheckNFS:$true
    }

    Any thoughts on this please?

    Mohammed

    bang on script…..works like a charm..

    just one question though, does it also support Datastore across clusters?

      LucD

      @Mohammed, it should, provided the clusters live under the same datacenter.

    TC

    LucD,

    You really are a genius!!!
    This script is very work and smart.
    Thanks for your sharing.

    Oleg

    Luc!!!

    Thanks a lot!!! Great script!!!

    tim

    Hi,
    I have been using this function regularly with success. Thanks for your sharing your work. I can across a problem getting the error
    Get-View : Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘VIObject’. The argument is null or empty. Supply an argument
    that is not null or empty and then try the command again.
    At U:\Scripts\vmware\hvd\dev\register-vms_2.ps1:61 char:18
    + $dc = Get-View <<<< $dc.Parent
    + CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:) [Get-View], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.Do
    tNetInterop.GetVIView

    Very frustrating as it seems that it just stopped working. But after some time analyzing the script what i found is that when i am connected to more than one vCenter i recieve this error. If i only connect to one it works fine. I ran different iterations of vc connections and found this to be true all the time. Are you aware of this?

    thanks,
    Tim

      LucD

      @Tim, thanks for the feedback.
      No I wasn’t aware of the problem you described. Good catch and thanks for the analysis.
      I guess I’ll have to spend some time with the script and make it work with multiple vCenter connections.

    Peter

    @LucD
    Hi lucd. Any progress on the new version?

    Peter

    @LucD
    Thanks LucD, I appreciate your help

    Peter

    @LucD
    Hi LucD,

    Ok so when the script checks if the vmx file is not registered and then registers the vm using the DisplayName field, could the script then check a csv and if the DisplayName matches a VmName only then will it be registered, if no match do not register

    Thanks

      LucD

      @Peter, that should be possible.
      Hold on, testing the new version.

    peter

    hi great script i was wondering if you could provide an example so that only vm’s specified from a csv file are registered

      LucD

      Hi Peter, thanks.
      In line 85

      if (-not $found){

      the script checks if the VMX file it found is not for a registered VM.
      You could adapt this test and check if this is a VMX that is provided in a CSV file.
      But there is a practical problem, the script registers the VMX file and the name of the VM will be the value of the DisplayName field inside the VMX file.
      Providing a CSV file with VMX filenames is easy to implement, providing a list of VM names is not so easy.
      What exactly did you have in mind ?

    Paul Gienger

    @LucD

    I made this small change to add the folder specification:

    In the parameters I added:
    $DestFolder=$null
    then right after this line
    $tgtfolder = Get-View $dc.VmFolder

    added
    if ($DestFolder){
    $thisFolder = Get-Folder -Name $DestFolder
    $tgtfolder = Get-View $thisFolder
    }

    We’ll be using this to keep templates in our dev/dr side of a snapmirrored netapp up to date with the source side. This should also come in handy in a DR exercise to get all the VMs registered quickly.

      LucD

      Hi Paul, great addition to the script.
      Thanks for that.

    Sean

    @Michael Sage
    LucD,

    Thank you for such a great script. I have used it many times to find lost VMs on my storage. I do have a question, I would like to be able to register VMs using this approach, but ones where I already know the vmx filepath. So I would supply a $vmx variable, and even a VMName variable, something like:

    $vmx = [LUN_1_VirtualMachines]MyVM/MyVM.vmx
    $VMName = MyVM

    I know I can use the New-VM cmdlet, but it is so slow compared to this method. Can you give me a hint as to how to get started with this? Thanks again.

    Sean

    Michael Sage

    Is there a similar script to look for unused VMDK’s? I love this script and run it across our infrastructure once a month. 🙂

      LucD

      @Michael, I think the script in Orphaned files and folders – Spring cleaning might bring what you are looking for.

    Sean

    @LucD
    LucD,

    Thank you, i was finally able to get it to work by changing my folder name to not have a space in it, and surrounding it with single quotes. So i used:

    $VMFolder = Get-Folder -Name ‘NewVMs’

    Thanks again!

    Sean

    Sean M

    LucD,

    Thank you very much for the great script. I have a question, how do you best change the folder the VMs get registered to? I see the value of $tgtfolder is the root DC folder, but I cant figure a way to change it without error. Thank you again for all your great work.

    Sean

    Sean

    Hello LucD,

    Thank you for the great script. I have one question, what is the proper way to change the folder that registered VMs get placed into? The script by default places them in the root datacenter folder. I tried changing the $tgtfolder to something like this:

    $VMFolder = Get-Folder -Name “New VMs”
    $tgtfolder = Get-View $VMFolder

    but end up with errors like this:

    Get-Folder : 10/2/2011 6:22:38 PM Get-Folder Folder with name ‘New VMs’ was not found, using the specified filter(s).
    At C:\Scripts\Failover_v1.1.ps1:173 char:25
    + $VMFolder = Get-Folder <<<< -Name "New VMs"
    + CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (:) [Get-Folder], VimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Core_OutputHelper_WriteNotFoundError,VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.GetFolder

    Any help is most appreciated. Thank you again.

    Sean

      LucD

      @Sean, the statements you used are correct, but it looks as if the folder “New VMs” doesn’t exist exist on your vCenter.

    Thomas Wilde

    Hi LucD,

    I’m experiencing the same issue described by Mark Hodges, however I find that if I rerun the same command multiple times, all of the VMs do get registered (just in increments of 1 or 2 at a time).

    I suspect the issue might be resolved if there were a small pause between each task, to allow the previous VM registration to complete before VC moves on to the next.

    While watching vClient as the script runs, I noticed each VM first showing up in inventory with a name similar to the following:

    ‘sanfs://vm-fs_uuid:/foldername/subfoldername’

    This is subsequently changed a moment later with the proper VM name as indicated in the .vmx.

    When registering multiple VMs, I see the following error in vClient show up for each VM not successfully registered:

    The name ‘sanfs://vm-fs_uuid:’ already exists.

    I suspect if there were a small pause to allow the name to be updated from the VMFS path to the VM name before proceeding to the next task, the issue might be resolved.

    Hope the extra detail helps – and thanks a million for all your work!

    -tom

      LucD

      @Thomas, great find, that is most probably exactly what goes wrong sometimes.
      Since the script uses the DisplayName of the VMX file to register the new VM, apparently vCenter first assigns a temporary name and then renames the VM.
      The ‘sanfs://vm-fs_uuid’ string is of course not unique when you stay on the same datastore.

      I’m going to investigate if I can check the status of the registration task to sequence the tasks.
      If that is not possible I will use a timer to wait a couple of seconds (like you suggested).

    Mark Hodges

    I’ve been testing this out as part of a datacenter migration with netapp snaps and in testing everything went well, however when testing against a clone of a production volume it only wants to register 2 out of approximately 30 VM’s.

    All directory structure is the same and name structure is consistent across all VM’s.
    I’ve validated that the vmx looks fine but I cannot get it to register anything but 2/30 vm’s.
    No errors occur when running whatif…manually using VIC toregister the VM’s work fine

      LucD

      @Mark, strange never saw that before.
      Can you try the following script ?
      It will list all the .vmx files that are found on a datastore. Update the $dsName variable before running.

      $dsName = "MyDS"
      $pattern = "*.vmx"

      $ds = Get-Datastore $dsName | Select -Unique | Get-View
      $dsBrowser = Get-View $ds.Browser

      $searchspec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostDatastoreBrowserSearchSpec
      $searchspec.MatchPattern = $pattern
      $datastorePath = "[" + $dsName + "]"

      $taskMoRef = $dsBrowser.SearchDatastoreSubFolders_Task($datastorePath, $searchSpec)

      $task = Get-View $taskMoRef
      while ("running","queued" -contains $task.Info.State){
      $task.UpdateViewData("Info.State")
      }
      $task.UpdateViewData("Info.Result")

      $task.Info.Result | Select @{N="VMX";E={$_.FolderPath + $_.File[0].Path}}

    Drunky

    @LucD
    Thanks for fast reply and again thanks for the script 🙂

    Drunky

    Hi LucD, thanks for great script. Unfortunately my knowledge of power shell if far fat from good i have some questions. I have some small test environment (vSphere 4.1 ) with several datacenters. Is it possible to run script for searching specific datastores (i.e. datastore1, datastore2, datastore4 ) but registering VMs in specific datacenter (i.e datacenter-test ) ?

      LucD

      @Drunky, the script registers the discovered guests in the root of the datacenter to which the datastore, where the .VMX file was found, belongs.
      If your datastores do not belong to the same datacenter I’m afraid you will have to run the script multiple times.

    Roger McCarrick

    This script worked for me before.
    We recently upgraded VC to 4.1.
    Plus the data store I specify in dsNames is only mounted on the first 4 ESX servers out of 20.
    Now I get this error:

    Get-View : Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘VIObject’. The argument is nu
    ll or empty. Supply an argument that is not null or empty and then try the comm
    and again.
    At V:\Scripts\VMWARE\Alpine\Alpine_Inventory.ps1:70 char:18
    + $dc = Get-View <<<< $dc.Parent
    + CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:) [Get-View], ParameterBindingVal
    idationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,VMware.VimAutom
    ation.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.DotNetInterop.GetVIView

      LucD

      @Roger, the script works with vSphere 4.1.
      Could it be that your datastores are only NFS mounts ?
      In that case you will have to use the -checkNFS switch.

    xcud

    On line 15 I’ve changed the check for “$entityName -eq $null” to “![string]::IsNullOrEmpty($entityName)” based on a couple of parameter exceptions I ran across when calling this script from other scripts that use empty strings instead of $nulls for default string param values.

      LucD

      Thanks for the info Ben.

    Brian Rekus

    Very nice script! I just found it and am trying to use it and getting the error below. I am using VC 4.1 and ESX 4.0 U1. I have tried connecting to VC/ESX and tried using the entity and the dsnames seperately and still get the same error. I re-copied and pasted with the icon and still no luck.

    Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘Id’. The argument is null or empty. Supply an argument that is not null or empty and then try the command again.
    At :line:53 char:17
    + $dc = Get-View <<<< $dc.Parent

    and the code looks like it copied correctly.

    while($dc.MoRef.Type -ne "Datacenter"){
    $dc = Get-View $dc.Parent
    }

      LucD

      @Brian. Thanks. You should be connected to the vCenter when calling the function.
      In the lines where you get the error, the script tries to determine the Datacenter to which the datastore belongs. The list of datastores are either the ones you passed via the -dsNames parameter or the datastores that are know in the entity you passed via the -entityName parameter. You can’t use both of these parameters together in a call.
      Perhaps you can give me the line where you called the Register-VMX function and a bit of information on the hierarchy of the environment (datacenter, cluster, host, datastore) ?
      You may email the info to lucd(at)lucd(dot)info

    Amit

    LucD,

    Thansk for the script . Can you please help me with this :
    $dc= Get-View <<<< $dv.Parent
    Get-View : The argument cannot be null or empty.

    I am trying against a single esxi host , not a VC . do I need to change anything .

    Thanks in advance

    Amit

      LucD

      @Amit, did something go wrong with the copy ?
      That line should say:

      $dc = Get-View $ds.Parent

    Chris

    I was wondering how I could target VMs and templates in a specific datastore and have them added to a specific Cluster.

    Thanks,

      LucD

      Hi CHris, the logic in the script takes the first ESX(i) that has the datastore attached. For that ESX(i) server, the script finds the hidden ‘Resources’ pool. The discovered guests are registered to that poool. If the ESX(i) was part of a cluster, the guest will be located in that cluster.
      What exactly do you want to do ? Are your datastores visible/mapped to multiple clusters ?
      Luc.

    Herschelle

    I would like to make a couple of suggestions if I may be bold. Firstly changing the “exit” after the Get-Usage calls to “return” so that the powershell window doesn’t close immediately after displaying the usage. I find very difficult to finishing reading the usage in a few hundredths of a second before the powershell window closes. 🙂
    In the first “if” statement changing both “-ne” to “-eq” as I believe this is attempting to check that at least one parameter $entityName or $dsNames has actually been passed something, so if both *are* $null then display Get-Usage.

      LucD

      @Herschelle, all suggestions are more than welcome.
      I replaced the ‘exit’ with a ‘break’, that way the Register-VMX function will return immediatly.
      The ‘if’ statement was meant to capture the situation when both -entityName and -dsNames were passed, which is not permitted.
      But your suggestion was indeed useful. I now added a test to see if no parameters are passed.
      I hope this makes the function a bit more user-friendly.

    alan

    @LucD

    Thats what I did and when I excute it it still comes up blank, where do I place “Register-VMX -entityName “MyDatacenter”” inside the script? it seems I am asking a total newb question but I can’t seem to get this right,

    Thanks,
    Alan

      LucD

      At the end of the script you copied there are some lines that are commented out (they start with the # sign).
      Remove the hash on one of these lines, and update the line to reflect your environment.
      If you want to search all datastores in a datacenter for example you would do:
      Register-VMX -entityName "MyDatacenter"
      If you want to search a specific datastore you would do:
      Register-VMX -dsNames "datastore1"
      The script will display a line on the console (Ex “Checking datastore1”) for each datastore it is investigating.

    alan

    Could you be alittle more indepth about the copy paste problem? I’m have issues with every way I copy and paste,

    Thank you so much for this great script.

      LucD

      Sure can. When you hover your mouse over the form that contains the code, there will be 4 icons that appear at the top right of the form.

      Icons

      Click the 2nd icon from the left and the code will be copied to your clipboard.
      Without the line numbers.

    Melanie

    Hi LucD,

    I’ve seen your name in many forums etc. I’m hoping you can help. I’m having the same problem where I’m running your script on a Vsphere4 environment and it displays nothing and does nothing. I have copied and pasted the code several times as I saw someone else said they’d copied it wrong but I still can’t get it to work and I’m an uber green newbie to all of this so I know its something I did wrong.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂

    Warm Regards

    Mel

    William

    @LucD ,
    Thank you for making this script, and it appears to be exactly what I am looking for.

    But I have been attempting to test in our environment and get no output or anything from the script with an ESX 4 host.

    I could use a hand if you have a few moments, I can supply you any version or environment info via email.

    Thank you.

      LucD

      After some emails we discovered that it was most probably a copy-paste problem.

    stone

    @LucD

    That worked. Thanks again for all your help!

    stone

    @LucD

    Thanks again. I am still having the problem with vm’s registering in the folder(s) I set to ignore.

      LucD

      Hi Stone, there was indeed a problem with nested folder and the -ignore parameter.
      The latest version should have solved that problem.

    NiTRo

    you totaly ROCK Luc !

    stone

    @stone

    Thanks for the quick update. I used the ?Register-VMX -entityName “MyCluster” -ignore “Folder1? line and it only scanned the local storage on my hosts and ignored our NFS storage. Would it be possible to add the -ignore switch to the ?Register-VMX -dsNames “datastore1? line? I tried it and it still scanned all folders.

      LucD

      In the previous version the script only checked VMFS datastores. In the latest version I have added the -checkNFS switch, which will allow you to also scan NFS datastores.

      The -dsName parameter should now work with the -ignore parameter. Let me know if you still experience a problem with that.
      Luc.

    NiTRo

    Luc, i just got an error on the “$tgtfolder = Get-View $dc.VmFolder”, i guess you should loop the “Get-View $ds.Parent” until the objet got VmFolder properties (my DS are in folders)

      LucD

      There was indeed a bug in that line with some specific configurations. That should be fixed in the new version, the script now loops upwards till it finds a datacenter.
      Thanks for finding this “feature”.
      Luc.

    NiTRo

    Luc, you should also provide a “list only” option. I’d a -whatif param 🙂

      LucD

      That shouldn’t be too hard to implement.

      LucD

      The latest version has a -whatif option.

    NiTRo

    Very nice script Luc, i Guess someone like me would also love the “Raiders of the Lost vmdk” version 😀

      LucD

      Hi NiTRo, that’s a good suggestion. It’s on my (long) list 😉
      Just remembered, there is already a Find Orphaned VMDK’s script in the Developer: Sample Code community.

    stone

    Nice Script! Is there away to ignore spacific folders in the datastore? We have a .snapshot folder that needs to be ignored.

      LucD

      Hi Stone. That is indeed a good suggestion.
      The script has been updated and now contains an -ignore parameter.

    Rl

    LucD,

    if i have a list of VMs in a text file and want to register them, how would I pipe it into your script?

    Arne Fokkema

    Awesome script. This saved me a lot of work and time. Thanks!

    Arnim van Lieshout

    Nice script! Definitely one to keep in my toolbox.

    Isn’t the equation “-ne $null” unnecesarry?
    if ($entityName -and $dsNames) is the same as if ($entityName -ne $null -and $dsNames -ne $null)

      LucD

      Thanks Arnim.
      You are of course right, the “-ne $null” is not really necessary.
      But I kept the condition like that for legibility.

    Jason Boche

    Thanks so much!!!

    Jason Boche

    Love it! How about a script to search for templates and register them as well?

      LucD

      Good idea.
      In fact I already published a script like that in the PowerCLI community (see unregistered template).
      But it should be rather easy to adapt this new version to find and register “lost” templates.
      Watch this space 😉

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