get-content input with space not being read by get-aduser in foreach loop

PowerShell Help
1

Greetings,
Have the following script which is reading data from a file which contains lines with blanks, for example
Michelle Test
Jackie Robinson

The following script errors when reading the file containing spaces in the data:

$admins = Get-Content -Path D:\PowerShell_temp\SR603855_admin_deletes.txt
foreach ($admin in $admins) {
# Review of Current Status
Get-ADUser -Identity $admin -Properties * | Select-Object Name,DisplayName,Description,SamAccountName,PasswordLastSet,PrimaryGroup,MemberOf,Manager,AccountExpirationDate,SamAccountName.enabled
# Check ADUser Account Status
(Get-ADUser -Identity $admin).Enabled
# Delete the User
Remove-ADUser -Identity $admin -Confirm:$false
}

Quoting the variable $admin or the data doesn’t seem to help, looking for some assistance

Thank you in advance

Norm

2

It would have been helpful when you posted the complete error message as well.

The parameter -Identity of the cmdlet Get-ADUser expects one of the 4 possible values:
A distinguished name
A GUID (objectGUID)
A security identifier (objectSid)
A SAM account name (sAMAccountName)

Do you provide something like this with your text file?

3

Hello Olaf,
Simply the Name, for example

DistinguishedName : CN=Michelle Test,
Enabled           : False
GivenName         : Michelle
Name              : Michelle Test
ObjectClass       : user
ObjectGUID        : 851d72ea-1888-46e4-8e72-75337f9c94e7
SamAccountName    : mtest
SID               : S-1-5-21-2000478354-1229272821-682003330-54577
Surname           : Test
UserPrincipalName : mtest@
4

By default, Get-Content should be reading each line of your text file into an array as a separate element, regardless of the content of the line. You could check this by echoing the contents of the array, e.g at line 2:

echo $admins

If you don’t get an array as expected, try specifying that the information should be stored in an array, like this:

$admins = @(Get-Content -Path D:\PowerShell_temp\SR603855_admin_deletes.txt)

or like this:

[Array] $admins = Get-Content -Path D:\PowerShell_temp\SR603855_admin_deletes.txt

Here is some more information on arrays and Get-Content.

The source of the text file may also be important - you may need to specify the encoding of the file for Get-Content using the -Encoding parameter (valid options are listed on the Get-Content documentation page linked above).
This is important because PowerShell cmdlets are wildly inconsistent when it comes to their default encoding. Get-Content defaults to ANSI but others default to UTF-8. In particular, the end-of-line character may be different. If your text file was auto-generated by an application, or created on a *NIX platform and then transferred to Windows (DOS), it may not have the line break characters that Get-Content expects, which could result in the entire file being read in as a single line rather than individual lines (producing a single string variable rather than an array).

5

Hello Olaf,
Got it to work, didn’t dawn on me until I ran get-aduser -properties * that the Displayname and Name were the same, at least in our AD.

$admins = Get-Content -Path D:\PowerShell_temp\SR603855_admin_deletes.txt
foreach ($admin in $admins) {
# Find and Remove the Active Directory User
Get-ADUser -Filter{DisplayName -like $admin}  | Remove-ADUser -Confirm:$False
}

Thanks for the input

Norm

6

Displayname and name can be ambiguous. I recommend using the sAMAccountName or the Distinguished Name … they are unique.