Local Groups and Members - powershell

Question

I have a requirement to report the local groups and members from a specific list of servers. I have the following script that I have pieced together from other scripts. When run the script it writes the name of the server it is querying and the server's local group names and the members of those groups. I would like to output the text to a file, but where ever I add the | Out-File command I get an error "An empty pipe element is not allowed". My secondary concern with this script is, will the method I've chosen the report the server being queried work when outputting to a file. Will you please help correct this newbies script errors please?
$server=Get-Content "C:\Powershell\Local Groups\Test.txt"
Foreach ($server in $server)
{
$computer = [ADSI]"WinNT://$server,computer"
"
"
write-host "==========================="
write-host "Server: $server"
write-host "==========================="
"
"
$computer.psbase.children | where { $_.psbase.schemaClassName -eq 'group' } | foreach {
write-host $_.name
write-host "------"
$group =[ADSI]$_.psbase.Path
$group.psbase.Invoke("Members") | foreach {$_.GetType().InvokeMember("Name", 'GetProperty', $null, $_, $null)}
write-host **
write-host
}
}
Thanks,
Kevin

Answer 1

You say that you are using Out-File and getting that error. You don't show_where_ in your code that is being called from.
Given the code you have my best guess is that you were trying something like this
Foreach ($server in $server){
# All the code in this block
} | Out-File c:\pathto.txt
I wish I had a technical reference for this interpretation but alas I have not found one (Think it has to do with older PowerShell versions). In my experience there is not standard output passed from that construct. As an aside ($server in $server) is misleading even if it works. Might I suggest this small change an let me know if that works.
$servers=Get-Content "C:\Powershell\Local Groups\Test.txt"
$servers | ForEach-Object{
$server = $_
# Rest of code inside block stays the same
} | Out-File c:\pathto.txt
If that is not your speed then I would also consider building an empty array outside the block and populate is for each loop pass.
# Declare empty array to hold results
$results = #()
Foreach ($server in $server){
# Code before this line
$results += $group.psbase.Invoke("Members") | foreach {$_.GetType().InvokeMember("Name", 'GetProperty', $null, $_, $null)}
# Code after this line
}
$results | Set-Content c:\pathto.txt
Worthy Note
You are mixing Console output with standard output. depending on what you want to do with the script you will not get the same output you expect. If you want the lines like write-host "Server: $server" to be in the output file then you need to use Write-Output