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How to use PowerShell to scan a server for a specific file type?

This is an easy one liner:

Get-WMIObject Win32_LogicalDisk -filter "DriveType = 3" | Select-Object DeviceID | ForEach-Object {Get-Childitem ($_.DeviceID + "\") -include *.wav -recurse}

Let’s break this one down into its individual parts.


Get-WMIObject Win32_LogicalDisk –filter “DriveType = 3”


In the above line, we are using WMI to access all the logical drives on the server.  We are using logical drives because we do not know how the drives are partitioned.  We are also looking for Drive type #3. Here is a list of the different drive types:


1 - Drive could not be determined



2 - Removable drive



3 - Local hard disk



4 - Network disk



5 - Compact disk (CD)



6 - RAM disk



 



Select-Object DeviceID



The Select-Object cmdlet allows us to focus just the DeviceID. The DeviceID is the drive letter.



ForEach-Object {Get-Childitem ($_.DeviceID + "\") -include *.wav -recurse}



The ForEach-Object cmdlet allows us to examine one object at a time in an array of objects.  The Get-Childitem is functionally the same as DIR in dos.  By using the $_.DeviceID we are simply saying “get the drive letter of the hard drive we are looking at.”  Adding the “\” sets up the correct syntax for our search. the –include parameter tells PowerShell what we are interested in.  In this case, we are looking for all files with a .wav extension. The –recurse parameter gets the items in a location, and in all child locations.  It is what allows us to search through each folder, and sub folder on each hard drive.



We can take this one step forward.  The remove the files found, add this to the end of the command line above



| Remove-Item



Be careful with this. You can do some damage if you are not careful. If you want to confirm each deletion, uses this line instead:



| Remove-Item – confirm

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