Add Folders On Remote Servers With PowerShell

Question

there's got to be something blatantly obvious on this one that I'm doing wrong, but I need another set of eyes to help me out because I'm not getting any errors - it's just not doing what I want... I need to push a software installer file to "X:\folder\Software Install Files" and backup the existing files to "X:\folder\Software Backups" on a bunch of different servers. In order to do that, I need to make sure these folders exist first and create them if they don't. The script below gathers the $computer variable from a servers.txt file, then for each computer I look to the registry to find out what drive the software is currently installed on, then create the appropriate folders on the drive if they don't exist:

# This file contains the list of Servers
$computers = gc "C:\Folder\Subfolder\Servers.txt"

clear-host

# The Command below pulls all the variables above and performs the file copy
foreach ($computer in $computers) {

#Gather Version and Program Directory Information from Registry


    $machinename = $computer
    $icakey = "SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\Program\\Program"
    $ICAVers = "Version"
    $ICADrive = "InstallDir"

    $reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine', 
$machinename)
    $icaregkey = $reg.opensubkey($icakey)
    $ICAV = $icaregkey.getvalue($IcaVers)
    $ICAD = $icaregkey.getvalue($IcaDrive)

#Declare Directory Drive Letter As Variable

    $DriveLetter,$Folder = $ICAD.split(":")

#Declare path for folders

    $Softwarepath = "\\$computer\$driveletter$\Folder\Software Install Files"
    $BackupPath = "\\$computer\$driveletter$\Folder\Software Backups"

#Create Software Folder

    If(test-Path -path $SoftwarePath)
        {Write-host "$SoftwarePath already exists on $computer" -ForegroundColor Red}
        ELSE
            {{New-Item -Path $SoftwarePath -ItemType Directory}
                {write-host "$SoftwarePath created on $computer"}}

#Create WebAccess Backups Folder

    If(test-Path -path $BackupPath)
        {Write-host "$BackupPath already exists on $computer" -ForegroundColor Red}
        ELSE
            {{New-Item -Path $BackupPath -ItemType Directory}
                {write-host "$BackupPath created on $computer"}}

The results I'm getting show this for every server in the servers.txt:

New-Item -Path $SoftwarePath -ItemType Directory
write-host "$SoftwarePath created on $computer"
New-Item -Path $BackupPath -ItemType Directory
write-host "$BackupPath created on $computer"

It's not actually creating the folder, and in previous times I've done something like this, the variables in the result displayed the value they were representing, and the "clear-host" at the top made sure the only result was the stuff that should have been in the write-host line.

Again, I feel like this is something blatantly obvious, but I'm tearing my hair out to figure it out.

Answer 1

To avoid a long discussion in comments, I think I may have found what was missing in your code. Indeed it had to do with the paths you set up for $Softwarepath and $BackupPath where you forgot the $ sign before Folder. The directories were probably created, but not where you expected them. They will have ended up in \\computername\X$\Folder\Software Install Files.

Anyway, here's a revised version of your code:

# This file contains the list of Servers
$computers = Get-Content "C:\Folder\Subfolder\Servers.txt"

clear-host

# The Command below pulls all the variables above and performs the file copy
foreach ($computer in $computers) {

    #Gather Version and Program Directory Information from Registry
    $machinename = $computer
    $icakey   = "SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\Program\\Program"
    $ICAVers  = "Version"
    $ICADrive = "InstallDir"

    $reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine', $machinename)
    $icaregkey = $reg.opensubkey($icakey)
    $ICAV = $icaregkey.getvalue($IcaVers)
    $ICAD = $icaregkey.getvalue($IcaDrive)

    #Close the registry keys when done
    $icaregkey.Close()
    $reg.Close()

    #Declare Directory Drive Letter As Variable
    $DriveLetter,$Folder = $ICAD.split(":")

    #Declare path for folders
    $Softwarepath = "\\$computer\$driveletter$\$Folder\Software Install Files"
    $BackupPath   = "\\$computer\$driveletter$\$Folder\Software Backups"

    #Create Software Folder
    if(Test-Path -Path $SoftwarePath -PathType Container) { 
        Write-Host "$SoftwarePath already exists on $computer" -ForegroundColor Red
    }
    else {
        New-Item -Path $SoftwarePath -ItemType Directory -Force
        Write-Host "$SoftwarePath created on $computer"
    }

    #Create WebAccess Backups Folder
    if(Test-Path -Path $BackupPath -PathType Container) {
        Write-Host "$BackupPath already exists on $computer" -ForegroundColor Red
    }
    else {
        New-Item -Path $BackupPath -ItemType Directory -Force
        Write-Host "$BackupPath created on $computer"
    }
}

Hope that helps