Trying to run legacy executables from powershell script - powershell

Question

I am looking to run net.exe from a script and I am having some trouble with spaces. Here is the code...
# Variables
$gssservers = Import-Csv "gssservers.csv"
$gssservers | Where-Object {$_.Tier -match "DB"} | Foreach-Object {
net.exe use "\\"$_.Name '/user:'$_.Name'\Administrator' $_.Pass
$sqlcheck = sc.exe \\$gsssql[1] query "WUAUSERV"
}
When I set line 5 to Write-Host I see that there are spaces that are added outside of anywhere I have quotes which is breaking the net.exe command. How can I remove those spaces?
For anyone questioning how I am doing this, the net.exe command is the only way I can get to these machines as WMI is blocked in this enclave.

Answer 1

My first guess is that you've got "invisible" spaces in your CSV file. For example their is likely a trailing whitespace after the names of your servers in the CSV that your eyes of course don't see. You can fix that either by fixing the CSV file, or using .Trim() on your imported strings -- i.e. $_.Name.Trim()
If that's not the case, or not the only issue, then this is something I've had issues with to. When I have complicated strings like your desired net.exe arguments I've liked to take precautions and get extra pedantic with defining the string and not rely on PowerShell's automatic guessing of exactly where a string begins and ends.
So, instead of baking your parameters inline on your net.exe command line hand-craft them into a variable first, like so
$args = '\\' + $_.name + '/user:' + $_.name + '\Administrator' + $_.pass
If you write-Host that out you'll see that it no longer has your rogue spaces. Indeed you may notice that it no longer has enough spaces, so you'll have to get a little explicit about where they belong. For instance the above line doesn't put the proper spaces between \\servername and /user, or between the username and password, so you'd have to add that space back in, like so.
$args = '\\' + $_.name + ' /user:' + $_.name + '\Administrator ' + $_.pass
Notice the explicit spaces.

Answer 2

I finally resolved this myself using #EdgeVB's solution. The code ended up like this...
# Variables
$gssservers = Import-Csv "gssservers.csv"
$gssservers | Where-Object {$_.Tier -match "DB"} | Foreach-Object {
$cmd1 = 'use'
$arg1 = '\\' + $_.Name
$arg2 = ' /user:' + $_.Name + '\Administrator '
& net.exe $cmd1 $arg1 $arg2 $_Pass
$cmd2 = 'query'
$svc1 = 'mssqlserver'
& sc.exe $arg1 $cmd2 $svc1 | Write-Host
}
Not only do you need to bake the variables in beforehand, but they also cannot cross certain thresholds (for instance, if "use" and "\" are in the same variable, it breaks.