Exchange cmdlet error change in PS 3 vs PS 4

PowerShell Help
1

Hello all,

I have a fairly simple cmdlet that was built for some of my Help Desk staff to activate new AD accounts, and it seems to run without issue on Powershell 3, but now that we have a few enterprising folk who have moved up to Powershell 4 they’re receiving and error now and I’m not sure as to why so I thought I’d turn to the experts.

Function New-User
{    
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$True,Position=1)]
    [string]$UserName,

    [Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]
    [string]$DataBase
    )
    
    
    Enable-ADAccount $UserName
    Get-ADUser $UserName | Move-ADObject -TargetPath "OU=Desktop,OU=Users,DC=Contoso,DC=com"
    Enable-Mailbox $UserName -Alias $UserName -Database $DataBase -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    

}

Since all users do not receive mailboxes, if nothing is filled out in the Database parameter the intention was to just continue along without showing the error message which worked fine. But now, for those that are on Powershell 4.0 when they run the command without specifying anything under Database, they get the following message :

Cannot process argument transformation on parameter ‘Database’. Cannot convert value “” to type
“Microsoft.Exchange.Configuration.Tasks.DatabaseIdParameter”. Error: “Parameter values of type
Microsoft.Exchange.Configuration.Tasks.DatabaseIdParameter can’t be empty. Specify a value, and try again.
Parameter name: identity”
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:slight_smile: [Enable-Mailbox], ParameterBindin…mationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentTransformationError,Enable-Mailbox
+ PSComputerName : mail.contoso.com

I’m assuming that since the error message would be a terminating error, -ErrorAction isn’t respected and it displays the message. But really my question is what’s different between Powershell 3 vs. 4 where the error results for Exchange cmdlets have changed? The Exchange environment is 2010 if it makes a difference.

2

Your assumption is correct. The difference isn’t between 3 and 4, it’s how the cmdlet is producing the information that’s causing the shell to react. The 2010 cmdlets explicitly dislike v4; they’re built against v3.

I’d try modifying your function so that, if $Database isn’t specified, you don’t include the -Database parameter. A hashtable and splatting can be a nice way to do that:

$params = @{'UserName'=$Username;'Alias'=$UserName;'ErrorAction'='SilentlyContinue'}
If ($psboundparameters.containskey('Database')) { 
  $params.add('Database',$Database)
}
Enable-Mailbox @params

Something like that. I don’t know what parameter is in the first position; I assumed it’s -UserName but if it’s -Identity or something else, you’ll need to adjust the code.

3

Now that is going to give me some interesting reading to do, thank you very much Don!