Error on win32_userprofile delete method? - powershell

Question

I'm attempting to create a script that cleans up temporary profiles on a 2008-R2 server.
Weird thing is I'm positive I had this working fine before our holiday, now the script doesn't work after said holiday :(.
The script:
$keys = ls "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\*.bak"
foreach ($key in $keys){
$sid = $key.name | select-string -Pattern 'S-\d-\d+-(\d+-){1,14}\d+' | out-string
$sid = ($sid).Split('\')[6]
$sid = ($sid).Split('.')[0]
$profile = get-wmiobject win32_userprofile -computername localhost | where-object {$_.SID -eq $sid}
$profile.Delete()
}
If I run that, or any form of modification of that delete method, I get:
Exception calling "Delete" with "0" argument(s): ""
At C:\temp\remove_temp_profiles.ps1:7 char:18
($profile).Delete <<<< ()
CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
FullyQualifiedErrorId : DotNetMethodException
If I run a:
get-wmiobject win32_userprofile | get-member
I can see that the delete method is not there. It's supposedly "hidden" whatever that means.
Apart from the delete not working, the rest of the script works perfectly (regex is another battle haha!)
I've also instead attempted to use remove-wmiobject instead. However it causes errors with:
Remove-WmiObject :
At C:\temp\remove_temp_profiles.ps1:7 char:28
+ $profile | remove-wmiobject <<<<
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [Remove-WmiObject], COMException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveWMICOMException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveWmiObject
I've spent ages and ages googling and trying different things, and all of the solutions appear to be "use the $variable.Delete() and it works fine". I don't know how to program (only basic scripting) so apologies for my newness.

Answer 1

This could be because the profile is still considered to be loaded. You can verify this by looking at the loaded property. You should also look at using the -Filter parameter instead of piping everything to Where-Object.
$keys = ls "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\*.bak"
foreach ($key in $keys){
$sid = $key.name | select-string -Pattern 'S-\d-\d+-(\d+-){1,14}\d+' | out-string
$sid = ($sid).Split('\')[6]
$sid = ($sid).Split('.')[0]
$profile = get-wmiobject win32_userprofile -computername localhost -Filter "SID -eq '$sid' AND NOT Loaded='True'"
$profile.Delete()
}
If you just want to see if profiles are still loaded:
Get-WMIObject win32_userprofile -computername localhost -Filter "Loaded='True'" |
Select SID,LocalPath,Loaded