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charlie4872's avatar
charlie4872
Brass Contributor
Jun 18, 2020

Using Remote $env user variable with invoke-command not working

In short, the script below is taking the $env:APPDATA info from my local computer instead of the $env:APPDATA info for the user currently logged on at remote computer, specified in the $computer variable. I have tried with no luck to search this in Google so I thought I would post here to see if anyone can help. Driving me crazy. Let me know if anything doesn't make sense.

Thanks in advance!

 

 

$computer = read-host 'Enter Computer Name'
invoke-command -computer $computer -scriptblock {Remove-Item -recurse "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Teams\blob_storage\*}

 

 

 

Windows PowerShell
  • Erick A. Moreno R.'s avatar
    Erick A. Moreno R.
    Iron Contributor
    Jun 21, 2020

    charlie4872  Hello Charlie. You can try to get the variable from the remote machine with this. 

    $computer = read-host 'Enter Computer Name'
invoke-command -computer $computer -scriptblock {Remove-Item -recurse "$([Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable(“APPDATA”))\Microsoft\Teams\blob_storage\*"}

     

    Regards

    Erick Moreno 

  • gastone's avatar
    gastone
    Brass Contributor
    Jun 27, 2020

    charlie4872

    The variable APPDATA is a user enviroment variable and is present only in the user session...

    APPDATA is builded runtime, in the user session!

    So if you invoke locally (or remotely) your code or the following line

     

    Get-CimInstance -ClassName win32_environment |Where{$_.name -match "appdata"}

     

    you get nothing, and is the correct final result

    The "no default" user variables are present in the registry in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment  (appdata is not present)

     

     

    APPDATA is builded using %USERPROFILE% (session variable) and the string \AppData\Roaming

    So you are approching the problem in the wrong way, that is the reason you getting crazy...

    How to resolve the problem?

    Get the remote users profile (or a single remote user) build the appdata and remove the teams blob storage

     

    #returning "remote" builded appdata variables
(Get-CimInstance -ClassName win32_userprofile -ComputerName $computer |select localpath)| %{ "{0}\appdata\roaming" -f $_.localpath}

     

     

    Bye Gas