Powershell gwmi for other users - powershell

Question

I am trying to collect user profile information for users on a machine and I was wondering if I could get it with gwmi. Here is how I get printers for the current user:Get-WmiObject win32_printer. How can I get the same info for the user "Test" on the same machine?

Answer 1

As it happens, I can't sleep, so I came up with these 2 functions:
function Get-UserSid {
[CmdletBinding()]
param(
[Parameter(
ParameterSetName='NTAccount',
Mandatory=$true,
ValueFromPipeline=$true,
Position=0
)]
[System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]
$Identity ,
[Parameter(
ParameterSetName='DomainAndUser',
Mandatory=$true
)]
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[ValidatePattern('^[^\\]+$')]
[String]
$Domain ,
[Parameter(
ParameterSetName='DomainAndUser',
Mandatory=$true
)]
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[ValidatePattern('^[^\\]+$')]
[String]
$User
)
Begin {
if ($PSCmdlet.ParameterSetName -eq 'DomainAndUser') {
$Identity = New-Object System.Security.Principal.NTAccount -ArgumentList $Domain,$User
}
}
Process {
$Identity.Translate([System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier])
}
}
function Get-PrinterNameByUser {
[CmdletBinding(DefaultParameterSetName='Ambiguous')]
param(
[Parameter(
ParameterSetName='ByAccount',
Mandatory=$true
)]
[System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]
$Account ,
[Parameter(
ParameterSetName='BySID',
Mandatory=$true
)]
[System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]
$SID ,
[Parameter(
ParameterSetName='Ambiguous',
Mandatory=$true,
Position=0,
ValueFromPipeline=$true
)]
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[String]
$Identity
)
Begin {
Write-Verbose "Parameter Set Name: $($PSCmdlet.ParameterSetName)"
if ($PSCmdlet.ParameterSetName -eq 'ByAccount') {
$SID = $Account | Get-UserSid
}
}
Process {
if ($PSCmdlet.ParameterSetName -eq 'Ambiguous') {
try {
$SID = [System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]$Identity
} catch [System.InvalidCastException] {
$Account = [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]$Identity
$SID = $Account | Get-UserSid
}
}
Get-ChildItem -Path "Registry::\HKEY_Users\$($SID.Value)\Printers" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Property -Unique
}
}
Usage
Get-PrinterNameByUser Test
Get-PrinterNameByUser 'domain\test'
Get-PrinterNameByUser 'S-1-S-21-65454546-516413534-4444'
All of those could be piped as well:
'Test' | Get-PrinterNameByUser
'domain\test' | Get-PrinterNameByUser
'S-1-S-21-65454546-516413534-4444' | Get-PrinterNameByUser
'S-1-S-21-65454546-516413534-4444','user1','machine\user2','domain\user3' | Get-PrinterNameByUser
Explanation
In the registry at HKU\S-ID-HERE\Printers there are some keys with properties. The property names are the printers. I wasn't able to test this on enough machines, so I wasn't certain which key(s) I should check, and whether they would be different depending on whether it was a local or network printer, etc., so I'm just getting the properties from all the keys and returning the unique ones.
The helper function Get-UserSid just provides a convenient way to get a SID from a user name.
Most of Get-PrinterNameByUser is just code to figure out what you've given it and translate it at needed. The meat of it that returns what you want is just the one line:
Get-ChildItem -Path "Registry::\HKEY_Users\$($SID.Value)\Printers" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Property -Unique