How to Write to Log-File Without Writing to Console - powershell

Question

New to PowerShell.
Some experience with Linux, bash, and programming (Java, C, HTML/CSS/JS). I just started an internship.
I was given a PowerShell script in order to do basic disk clean-up. Part of it pasted below. It writes to both console and a logfile. Some of the servers that I am cleaning having hundreds of thousands of files. I want to increase the performance of the script by only writing to the logfile. It usually starts out pretty strong, but once the console output gets large enough, things start to slow down drastically.
I attempted to simply remove the -verbose tags, but then it doesn't write to either. Then my understanding was that 'SilentlyContinue' would allow print to log, but not console. But the code already has SilentlyContinue flags? I then tried adding-Verbose to some of the for-each statements and that didn't work either.
I'm just kind of running in circles now.
Any ideas or pointers?
function global:Write-Verbose
(
[string]$Message
)
{ # check $VerbosePreference variable
if ( $VerbosePreference -ne 'SilentlyContinue' )
{ Write-Host " $Message" -ForegroundColor 'Yellow' }
}
Write-Verbose
$DaysToDelete = 7
$LogDate = get-date -format "MM-d-yy-HH"
$objShell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$objFolder = $objShell.Namespace(0xA)
Start-Transcript -Path C:\Windows\Temp\$LogDate.log
​
#Cleans all code off of the screen.
Clear-Host
​
$Before = Get-WmiObject Win32_LogicalDisk | Where-Object { $_.DriveType -eq "3" } | Select-Object SystemName,
#{ Name = "Drive" ; Expression = { ( $_.DeviceID ) } },
#{ Name = "Size (GB)" ; Expression = { "{0:N1}" -f ( $_.Size / 1gb) } },
#{ Name = "FreeSpace (GB)" ; Expression = { "{0:N1}" -f ( $_.Freespace / 1gb ) } },
#{ Name = "PercentFree" ; Expression = { "{0:P1}" -f ( $_.FreeSpace / $_.Size ) } } |
Format-Table -AutoSize | Out-String
## Stops the windows update service.
Get-Service -Name wuauserv | Stop-Service -Force -Verbose -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
## Windows Update Service has been stopped successfully!
​
## Deletes the contents of windows software distribution.
Get-ChildItem "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\*" -Recurse -Force -Verbose -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Where-Object { ($_.CreationTime -lt $(Get-Date).AddDays(-$DaysToDelete)) } |
remove-item -force -Verbose -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
## The Contents of Windows SoftwareDistribution have been removed successfully!
​
## Deletes the contents of the Windows Temp folder.
Get-ChildItem "C:\Windows\Temp\*" -Recurse -Force -Verbose -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Where-Object { ($_.CreationTime -lt $(Get-Date).AddDays(-$DaysToDelete)) } |
remove-item -force -Verbose -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
## The Contents of Windows Temp have been removed successfully!
​
## Deletes all files and folders in user's Temp folder.
Get-ChildItem "C:\users\$env:USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Where-Object { ($_.CreationTime -lt $(Get-Date).AddDays(-$DaysToDelete)) } |
remove-item -force -Verbose -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
## The contents of C:\users\$env:USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\ have been removed successfully!
## Remove all files and folders in user's Temporary Internet Files.
Get-ChildItem "C:\users\$env:USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\*" -Recurse -Force -Verbose -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Where-Object { ($_.CreationTime -le $(Get-Date).AddDays(-$DaysToDelete)) } |
remove-item -force -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
## All Temporary Internet Files have been removed successfully!
## Cleans IIS Logs if applicable.
Get-ChildItem "C:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Where-Object { ($_.CreationTime -le $(Get-Date).AddDays(-60)) } |
Remove-Item -Force -Verbose -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
## All IIS Logfiles over x days old have been removed Successfully!
## deletes the contents of the recycling Bin.
$objFolder.items() | ForEach-Object { Remove-Item $_.path -ErrorAction Ignore -Force -Verbose -Recurse }
## The Recycling Bin has been emptied!
## Starts the Windows Update Service
Get-Service -Name wuauserv | Start-Service -Verbose
​
$After = Get-WmiObject Win32_LogicalDisk | Where-Object { $_.DriveType -eq "3" } | Select-Object SystemName,
#{ Name = "Drive" ; Expression = { ( $_.DeviceID ) } },
#{ Name = "Size (GB)" ; Expression = { "{0:N1}" -f ( $_.Size / 1gb) } },
#{ Name = "FreeSpace (GB)" ; Expression = { "{0:N1}" -f ( $_.Freespace / 1gb ) } },
#{ Name = "PercentFree" ; Expression = { "{0:P1}" -f ( $_.FreeSpace / $_.Size ) } } |
Format-Table -AutoSize | Out-String
​
## Sends some before and after info for ticketing purposes
Hostname ; Get-Date | Select-Object DateTime
Write-Host "Before: $Before"
Write-Host "After: $After"
​
Write-Verbose ( Get-ChildItem -Path C:\* -Include *.iso, *.vhd, *.vhdx -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Sort Length -Descending | Select-Object Name, Directory,
#{Name = "Size (GB)"; Expression = { "{0:N2}" -f ($_.Length / 1GB) } } | Format-Table |
Out-String )
​
## Completed Successfully!
Stop-Transcript

Answer 1

You want to look into Redirection: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_redirection?view=powershell-7.1
It's useful for logging your Catch output, wrapping it in ${} and specifying your stream output. Ex: ${ Write-Verbose ... } 4>&1 3>&1 2>&1 >> $logFile
Most of what you have though looks like you're trying to log data for reference. Like your Before:After & final Get-ChildItem statements. If you're doing it as you go, you can pipe to Out-File -Append to a log file. But since you have it in a block towards the end, you can simply wrap & redirect:
&{
Write-Host "Before: " $Before
Write-Host "After: " $After"
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\* -Include *.iso, *.vhd, *.vhdx -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Sort Length -Descending | Select-Object Name, Directory,
#{Name = "Size (GB)"; Expression = { "{0:N2}" -f ($_.Length / 1GB) } } | Format-Table |
Out-String
} *> C:\FilePath\File.txt
Notice you don't even need to wrap your Get-ChildItem in a Write-Verbose statement. Get cmdlets that spit out to console, will just write the output to the file when using redirection. The only time you should need to issue a Write statement is if you are adding a string of text / interpolating data.
On an unrelated note, I see a DRY opportunity. Your before & after statements are identical. Put a function towards the top of your file that returns the statement, that way you can just assign your $Before & $After vars to the return output.