Functions tabular output changing on some remote computers - powershell

Question

I have this function I'm using a foreach statement block to run against a number of machines:
function Get-InstalledApps ($appStr) {
$appWC = "*$appStr*"
if ([IntPtr]::Size -eq 4) {
$regpath = 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*'
}
else {
$regpath = #(
'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*'
'HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*'
)
}
$getapps = Get-ItemProperty $regpath | .{process{if($_.DisplayName -and $_.UninstallString) { $_ } }}
Foreach ($app in $getapps | where {$_.DisplayName -like $appWC}) {
[pscustomobject]#{Computer = ($env:COMPUTERNAME + "." + $env:USERDNSDOMAIN)
AppName = ($app.displayname)
Publisher = ($app.Publisher)
DisplayVersion = ($app.DisplayVersion)
InstallDate = ($app.InstallDate)
UninstallString = ($App.UninstallString)}
}
}
Locally, it looks like this:
PS C:\windows\system32> Get-InstalledApps ibm | ft
Computer AppName Publisher DisplayVersion InstallDate UninstallString
-------- ------- --------- -------------- ----------- ---------------
Computer.domain.COM IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Client IBM 06.04.0001 20140807 MsiExec.exe /I{FF99015E-71B4-41AB-8985-67D99383A72A}
But when run remotely on some computers
(i.e:)
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $computer -ScriptBlock
${function:Get-InstalledApps} -ArgumentList $appStr
I get the above, however on others I get this:
Name Value
---- -----
UninstallString MsiExec.exe /I{68C09095-AC00-4541-B46B-0835F2BDB0CE}
Computer comp1.domain.com
Publisher IBM
InstallDate 20150122
DisplayVersion 07.01.0000
AppName IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Client
UninstallString MsiExec.exe /X{1316AC9A-7A5D-4866-B41F-4B3CF03CE52A}
Computer comp2.domain.com
Publisher IBM Corp.
InstallDate 20170226
DisplayVersion 9.2.7.53
AppName IBM BigFix Client
Without having a chance to verify PowerShell versions of some of the computers yet, I'm guessing the 2nd set of results may be as a result of being run against computers running < version 3.0.
Any way to force the output to display as a table (1st example output) on all computers?

Answer 1

I'm guessing the 2nd set of results may be as a result of being run against computers running < version 3.0.
If you are running that on systems that are not at least version 3 then your [pscustomobject] cast would fail since that was introduced in v3. I would have expected that to just trigger an error but instead it appears to be returning the hashtable. A compatible solution would be to use new-object instead.
New-Object -TypeName PSCustomObject -Property #{
Computer = ($env:COMPUTERNAME + "." + $env:USERDNSDOMAIN)
AppName = ($app.displayname)
Publisher = ($app.Publisher)
DisplayVersion = ($app.DisplayVersion)
InstallDate = ($app.InstallDate)
UninstallString = ($App.UninstallString)
}

Answer 2

Thanks Matt.
That worked, which is my preferred method.
if the app wasn't installed or the host was offline, a couple of variations of IF statements didn't seem to pick up the output at another point in the script (only displayed if it was installed) and returned as a blank line, however this seemed to be picked up by the statement blocks:
function Get-InstalledApps ($appStr) {
$appWC = "*$appStr*"
if ([IntPtr]::Size -eq 4) {
$regpath = 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*'
}
else {
$regpath = #(
'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*'
'HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*'
)
}
$getapps = Get-ItemProperty $regpath | .{process{if($_.DisplayName -and $_.UninstallString) { $_ } }}
$getapps | where {$_.DisplayName -like $appWC} | Select #{n='Computer';e={$env:COMPUTERNAME + "." + $env:USERDNSDOMAIN}},Displayname,Publisher,DisplayVersion,InstallDate,UninstallString
}