Cleaning up filenames from MAC using Powershell - powershell

Question

I'm writing a script that iterates over files that are copied from a MAC computer to a Exfat disk and checks the name of the files for Windows forbidden characters.(Writing it in PowerShell)
And hopefully replace the forbidden characters with another character, for example a "-".
Why i am doing this is because i see it as a good way for me to practice coding and it might be used in my work when we get users with a lot of local files that we want to move to Onedrive.(Onedrive has a function to rename but it doesn't touch the forbidden characters, and i don't know Bash)
The issue is when I'm trying to find the characters within the script itself, it cant find the characters if i write them in the script.(For example if i write that it should look for ">")
Even if i escape the characters it just skips it(Or rather doesn't find it).
It just skips over the file i know has one in it, at first i though it might be due to encoding, but no matter what i use as a default encoding it wont display the filename correctly.(I assume this is due to how Windows reads filenames?)
edit: These are the forbidden characters im goint to look for " * : < > ? / \ |
The script itself is able to remove letters and stuff if i ask it to.
I also tried getting the char of the byte([byte][char]"") but i get this error:
Cannot convert value "" to type "System.Byte". Error: "Value was either too large or too small for an unsigned byte." Edit: the  changed by itself during the day not sure what to say.
If i just add it to the function it just returns the error:Rename-Item : The input to the script block for parameter 'NewName' failed. Exception calling "Replace" with "2" argument(s): "String cannot be of zero length.
The characters are displayed like this in visual studio code.
Any ideas are welcome or if you know of any better ways of doing it?(Maybe its better if i just learn bash. )
Here is the script itself:
edit: cleaned up the script abit and some small changes.
$provided_path = Read-Host "What Directory and its subfolders do you want to check?"
# Iterates over the folders and files within.
Write-Host "Creating list of files..."
$dictionary_filenames = ""
$dictionary_filenames = Get-ChildItem -Path $provided_path -Recurse -Force -File | Select-Object FullName,BaseName,Extension
# Resetting counter
$counter_skipped = 0
# Function for character replacment
function rename_file_name($names_function,$forbidden_char){
$old_name = $names_function.BaseName
$new_name = $names_function | Rename-Item -LiteralPath $names_function.FullName -NewName{$_.BaseName.Replace("$forbidden_char","-") + $_.extension} -PassThru
if($old_name -ne $new_name.BaseName){
Write-host "$old_name changed to $new_name"
}
}
foreach($names in $dictionary_filenames){
if($names.BaseName[0] -eq "." -and $names.BaseName[1] -match "_"){
$counter_skipped ++
$counter ++
continue
}
else{
if($names.BaseName[0] -eq " " -or $names.BaseName[-1] -eq " "){
$old_name = $names.BaseName
$new_name = $names | Rename-Item -LiteralPath $names.FullName -NewName{$_.BaseName.trim() + $_.extension} -PassThru
Write-Host "Trimming whitespace: $old_name"
}
else{
Write-Host "Trimming not needed "$names.BaseName
}
Write-host "Checking forbidden characters "$names.BaseName
rename_file_name $names ">"
rename_file_name $names "<"
rename_file_name $names "/"
}
}
Write-Host "Files checked: "$dictionary_filenames.Count
Write-Host "Files Skipped: "$counter_skipped
Read-Host 'Close window by pressing "Enter"'```

Answer 1

 is U+F021, two bytes long or [int16]. You can put it in a utf8 with bom encoded script.