Wu's Blog

My IT Adventure

Tag: PowerShell

How to Fix “PowerCLI Command Found but Module Could Not Be Loaded” in PowerShell
How to Fix PowerShell VMware Errors: Assertion Failure and Connect-VIServer Module Issues

When working with VMware PowerCLI in PowerShell, you may encounter error messages that prevent you from connecting to a vCenter Server or ESXi host. Two common errors include:
- “An assertion failure has occurred.”
- “The ‘Connect-VIServer’ command was found in the module ‘VMware.VimAutomation.Core’, but the module could not be loaded.”
These errors usually indicate issues with PowerShell module permissions, blocked files, or Group Policy restrictions. Below are the most common causes and their proven solutions.

Common Causes and Solutions

A. VMware PowerCLI Module Files Are Set to Read-Only

If PowerCLI module files or folders are marked as read-only, PowerShell may fail to load them correctly.

How to fix:
1. Navigate to your PowerShell Modules directory (for example:
  C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules)
2. Select all VMware-related folders starting with vmware*.
3. Right‑click and choose Properties.
4. Enable Read-only, apply the setting to all subfolders and files, and click OK.
5. Reopen Properties, uncheck Read-only, and apply again.
This reset helps clear inconsistent file attribute states.

B. VMware PowerCLI Module Files Are Blocked by Windows

Files downloaded from the internet or copied from another machine may be blocked by Windows for security reasons, preventing PowerShell from loading the module.

How to fix:

Run the following command in an elevated PowerShell session:
```
Get-ChildItem "Module Path" -Recurse | Unblock-File
```
PowerShell
Replace "Module Path" with the actual path where the VMware PowerCLI modules are installed.

This command removes the “blocked” flag from all files in the module directory.

C. Group Policy Restricts Script Execution

In some corporate environments, Group Policy (GPO) allows only signed PowerShell scripts to execute.

This can block PowerCLI modules from loading.

How to fix:
- Verify the current execution policy: PowerShellGet-ExecutionPolicy -List
- Work with your IT security team to figure out a solution.
Aligning PowerShell execution policy with security standards is essential in enterprise environments.
December 5, 2025
Quick Note: Modify PowerShell Execution Policy in Registry
I think to maintain a solid security policy is mandatory in an enterprise network. The information leak not only a threat to IT but also impact the firm’s profits and stock performance. Firms usually leverage Active Directory Group Policy to control security settings on Windows. The PowerShell execution policy is the one most company ITs would restrict.

IT Pros may need to do some testing in scripting. I have posted how to change PowerShell execution policy by PowerShell command.

Following is the step of how to get rid of the restriction. This is just for temporary use. You should revert it immediately after testing!!!
1. Open Registry Editor.
```
regedit.msc
```
1. Go to HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftPowerShell1ShellIdsMicrosoft.PowerShell.
2. Change the registry key ExecutionPolicy value to RemoteSigned.
3. Open a new PowerShell prompt and run your script.
If you don’t want to change the registry key. You can paste the scripts into Windows PowerShell ISE and run all of the lines. Please note this option may throw error if you have relative paths in the script due to the temp script running under the same directory of Windows PowerShell ISE application.

How to run selection in Windows PowerShell ISE

Please refer to Microsoft document if you want to learn more about PowerShell execution policy.
June 28, 2020
Get SSD Hard Disk Information by PowerShell to HPE Servers
Summary

HPE published an advisor for SSD issue recently. The issue impacts most popular Proliant servers in the world. The remediation is upgrading firmware. Unfortunately HPE doesn’t have a product can easy report hard disk model for Gen9 and earlier models. I have tried HPE OneView and OneView Global Dashboard. However, we can get SSD hard disk information by PowerShell through API.

Solution

Following procedure helps you get SSD hard disk information in large environment.
1. Make sure you have same credential available on iLO of Proliant servers. It can be local or domain credentials.
2. Prepare a Windows 2016 or Windows 10 computer with latest patch and internet.
3. Install HPEiLOCmdlet by following PowerShell command
```
Install-Module -Name HPEiLOCmdlets
```
1. Connecting to HPE iLO.
```
$Conn = Connect-HPEiLO -IP xxx -User xxx -Password xxx -DisableCertificateAuthentication
```
1. Retrieving HPE Smart Array Storage Controller information.
```
$HardDisks = Get-HPEiLOSmartArrayStorageController -Connection $Conn
```
1. Run following command to get physical disk information.
```
HardDisks.Controllers.PhysicalDrives
```
Conclusion

PowerShell API is much flexible to get any information of hardware. The solution above is core part. Of course you can leverage ForEach-Object to do some automation report to export to CSV file. PowerShell is not only method, you can also get SSD hard disk information by other API.
December 6, 2019
Machine Learning Basic – Calculate Euclidean Distance by PowerShell
The core of Machine Learning is to find out rules in a set of data. One basic operation of Machine Learning is “Cluster”. Or simply call it “classify data”. For example, there are 1000 records of toy sales data. It will be useful for proactive new incoming customer’s behavior if we can classify the data to multiple groups (Such as “buy stuffed toys” group and “buy electronic toys” group).

So we need to leverage partition methods to classify the sales data. There are multiple ways to do so. One simple method call “K-Means“. It calculates the distance between each data point and centroids ( Center point of a group ). And then assign data points to the closest centroids. Wikipedia has a detail description of the method.

Hence, as you can see, the key to “K-Means” is to calculate distance. There are several ways of calculation. “Euclidean Distance” is one way. Please refer to Wikipedia for deep dive. Long to short, you need to distribute data to a 2D axis. Each data point has x and y value. “Euclidean Distance” between two data points is:

The formulation is simple, but you have to calculate the distance between each data point to every centroids. Following is a super simple PowerShell code to help calculate Euclidean Distance of a 3 clustered data.
```
$K1 = (3.67, 9)
$K2 = (7, 4.33)
$K3 = (1.5, 3.5)

$input = Import-Csv "c:tempinput.txt"

$i = 1
foreach ($seed in $input){
    $K1Result= [math]::Sqrt([math]::pow(($K1[0]-$seed.x),2)+[math]::pow(($K1[1]-$seed.y),2))
    $K2Result= [math]::Sqrt([math]::pow(($K2[0]-$seed.x),2)+[math]::pow(($K2[1]-$seed.y),2))
    $K3Result= [math]::Sqrt([math]::pow(($K3[0]-$seed.x),2)+[math]::pow(($K3[1]-$seed.y),2))
    Write-Host "K1 to  A$i distance is $K1Result"
    Write-Host "K2 to  A$i distance is $K2Result"
    Write-Host "K3 to  A$i distance is $K3Result"
    $i++
}
```
PowerShell
This script assumes you want to partition records to a set of 3 clusters (K1, K2, K3). $K1, $K2, and $K3 are centroids of each cluster (group). You can adjust it according to your purpose.

The script loads records in “input.txt” file then calculates Euclidean Distance of each record. Each record in “input.txt” only has x and y value. Following is a sample of “input.txt“. You can copy it for testing.

x,y
2, 10
2, 5
8, 4
5, 8
7, 5
6, 4
1, 2
4, 9

Following is the result:

K1 to A1 distance is 1.9465096968677
K2 to A1 distance is 7.55968914704831
K3 to A1 distance is 6.51920240520265
K1 to A2 distance is 4.33461647669087
K2 to A2 distance is 5.04469027790607
K3 to A2 distance is 1.58113883008419
K1 to A3 distance is 6.61429512495474
K2 to A3 distance is 1.05304320899002
K3 to A3 distance is 6.51920240520265
K1 to A4 distance is 1.66400120192264
K2 to A4 distance is 4.17958131874474
K3 to A4 distance is 5.70087712549569
K1 to A5 distance is 5.20469979921993
K2 to A5 distance is 0.67
K3 to A5 distance is 5.70087712549569
K1 to A6 distance is 5.5162396612185
K2 to A6 distance is 1.05304320899002
K3 to A6 distance is 4.52769256906871
K1 to A7 distance is 7.49192231673554
K2 to A7 distance is 6.43652856748108
K3 to A7 distance is 1.58113883008419
K1 to A8 distance is 0.33
K2 to A8 distance is 5.55057654663009
K3 to A8 distance is 6.04152298679729
November 10, 2019
Agentless Management with PowerShell for DELL iDRAC
DELL provides agentless management of iDRAC by PowerShell. It’s more convenience for enterprise level infrastructure compare with HPE Scripting Tools or Cisco PowerTools. You don’t have to install any extra software to retrieve hardware data from iDRAC

DELL provides an article “Agentless Management with PowerShell 3.0 – CIM Cmdlets and iDRAC/Lifecycle Controller” with a sample code which is very detail. The scripts leverage public repos on internet: schemas.dell.com.

But what if your infrastructure is offline or internet is blocked?

After few hours dig into it. I found a workaround works in my environment.
1. Go to DCIM library profile to find profile of what your iDRAC. (I use DCIM System Info Profile for example)
2. The document tells what’s the ” Implementation Namespace” and “Central Class”.
3. Follow sample code in DELL document but when you connect CIM session use following format:
```
Get-CimInstance -CimSession $session -ClassName <class name> -Namespace <Name space name>
```
In my sample, the command is:
```
Get-CimInstance -CimSession $session -ClassName DCIM_SystemView -Namespace "root/dcim"
```
I have some posts talk about PowerShell. Here is the article to get space utilization of Windows Servers.
September 19, 2019
Bitbucket Server Integration With Visual Studio Code on Windows
There is an official Bitbucket extension for Visual Studio Code if you use Bitbucket Cloud. Bitbucket has not yet released official extension for Bitbucket Server users. Following is how to configure Visual Studio Code to use Bitbucket Server.

Before the procedure you need to collect the following information:
- Your user name on Bitbucket Server.
- Your email on Bitbucket Server.
- Decide the local path to store code. (It’s c:tempgit in this guide)
- Your account has permission to modify repositories on Bitbucket Server.
- Assume project name is “ExampleProject” on Bitbucket Server.
- Assume repository name in the project is “ExampleRepository“.
- Get the URL of the target repository. (It’s https://[email protected]/scm/exampleproject/examplerepository.git in this guide)
- Make sure you have the latest Visual Studio Code installed.
Time needed: 30 minutes
1. Download and install Git.
  Download windows installer in Github.
  Installation is simple. Only thing is to make sure to choose “Visual Studio Code” when it asks editor integration.
2. Configure user name and email in Git.
  Name and email should match your account information on Bitbucket server.
  Run the commands in Windows command prompt.
  $ git config --global user.name "Name" $ git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
3. Clone repository to local.
  Open a command prompt. Go to a folder you want to clone the remote “ExampleRepositiry” to. Run command:
  git clone https://[email protected]/scm/exampleproject/examplerepository.git
  You will see a sub-folder with the name “ExampleRepository” is created in local.
  A hidden folder “.git” is created in the sub-folder. It’s used to tracking changes.
4. Open workspace in Visual Studio Code
  Bitbucket Server configuration is completed in local.
  Now open Visual Studio Code -> File -> Add folder to workspace -> Open “ExampleRepository” folder.
  Visual Studio Code is integrated with Git in-the-box. It detects the repository automatically.
  It shows “Unrack” if you create a new file in the folder.
Conclusion

This is an expressway to integrate Bitbucket Server with Visual Studio Code. I’m still new on Git. Following are some useful information.

https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/install-git?section=windows

https://www.atlassian.com/git?utm_campaign=learn-git&utm_medium=in-app-help&utm_source=stash
July 26, 2019
Show CDP Neighbor of Cisco UCS Uplinks
There are two ways to know which network switch ports the network uplinks of Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects are connected to.

By CLI
- SSH to the Cisco UCS Manager.
- Connect to FI-A.
```
# connect nxos a
```
- Show neighbor of network uplinks.
```
# show cdp neighbor interface ethernet <port num>
```
By PowerShell
- Make sure Cisco PowerTool (For UCS Manager) is installed.
- Enabling the Information Policy via UCSM GUI.
  - Go to “Equipment” -> “Policies” tab -> “Global Policies” tab -> “Info Policy” area.
  - Change to “Enabled“. (No impact to running blades)
- Open a PowerShell window.
- Connect to the UCS Manager.
```
# Connect-Ucs <UCS FQDN>
```
- Show CDP neighbor details.
```
# Get-UcsNetworkLanNeighborEntry
```
Side notes

Following command can shows network switch name, network switch ports and FI ports
```
# Get-UcsNetworkLanNeighborEntry | Select deviceid,remoteinterface,localinterface
```
If you prefer to enable the “Info Policy” by PowerShell, run following command
```
# Get-UcsTopInfoPolicy | Set-UcsTopInfoPolicy -State enabled -Force
```
September 21, 2018
How To Find Non-tagged ESXi Hosts
There are plenty of scripts to find tagged ESXi hosts. But what if you want to find out all ESXi hosts not be tagged? Following is a simple script:
```
Compare-Object ((Get-VMHost | Get-TagAssignment).Entity | select -uniq) (Get-VMHost)
```
The output is similar like following:
```
InputObject      SideIndicator
-----------      -------------
esx1         =>  
esx2         =>  
esx3         =>
```
The => indicates ESXi hosts in InputObject are not tagged.

If return is nothing, it means all ESXi hosts are tagged.

Please refer to “Using the Compare-Object Cmdlet” for detail.
October 30, 2017
Automatic vSphere Capacity Report in PPT

Reporting is important to management. To be a IT Pro, you may need to run regular reports for management. Some reports may be generated time consume. vRealize Operations Manager is an alternative to create customized reports. It’s a powerful product to organize data and create PDF or CSV files on scheduled intervals. I recommend have a look if you have planned to implement performance, capacity and alarm system for virtual environment.

What if budget is constrained? Is there a way to create such kind of reports? The answer is “Yes”. I worked out an automatic workflow to create the reports. I will not provide step-by-step guide in this post since it’s advanced integration of multiple products, everyone may have different way to do that. You can even create everything by script if you have strong programming skill. I’m not, I only look for the easiest way to achieve the goal.

Here is a scenario for example: I want to run a monthly report for vSphere CPU and memory count and present to management by PowerPoint. I want to show management the historical trend of CPU and memory data. The traditional way is collect data in vCenter, organize and create charts in PowerPoint slides. So the whole workflow is: vCenter -> PowerPoint

If you want to automate the whole process you need to introduce few things more: PowerCLI, CSV and Excel. You need to develop a PowerCLI script to grab CPU and memory data on vCenter Server, then export the data to a CSV table by PowerShell command export-csv. Then import the table to an Excel file by Office feature Query Data. It loads the CSV table dynamically, you can even specific what data can be queried by filter.

Once the table is present in Excel, you need to create a chart accordingly. It’s trick when you paste the chart to PowerPoint Slide. You need to use Paste Special to paste the chart as Microsoft Excel Chart Object. The pasted chart can be updated automatically when you open the PowerPoint file.

The last step is created a scheduled task to run the PowerCLI script. Make sure you read my blog Extremely slow when run PowerShell script by scheduled tasks before create the task.

You can also configure the Excel file to automatically update table by CSV file.

October 16, 2017
How to Integrate PowerCLI 6.5 with PowerShell and PowerShell ISE
I wrote an article to introducing how to integrate PowerCLI with PowerShell and PowerShell ISE. VMware just released PowerCLI 6.5 R1, it includes lot of new features and modules. And somehow my way doesn’t work. Following is new way to integrate PowerCLI 6.5 with PowerShell and PowerShell ISE in Windows 10.

PowerShell and PowerShell ISE both have it own $profile. So we need to do two times.

Before we start

Please make sure your PowerShell execution policy is not restricted. You can get the setting by run following command:
```
Get-ExecutionPolicy
```
PowerShell Integration
1. Open PowerShell window. Run following command to confirm profile file is not existing.
```
Test-Path $profile
```
  If return is ‘False’, go to step 2.
  If return is ‘True’, Backup the file and go to step 3.
2. Run following command if the profile file doesn’t existing.
```
New-Item -Path $profile -type file -force | Out-Null

Test-Path $profile
```
  The return above should be ‘True’. Profile file is created.
3. Run following command to include VMware PowerCLI modules in PowerShell.
```
Add-Content -Path $profile -value "# Load Windows PowerShell cmdlets for managing vSphere `r`n. 'C:Program Files (x86)VMwareInfrastructurePowerCLIScriptsInitialize-PowerCLIEnvironment.ps1'"
```
  The blue text above maybe different in your environment base upon where your PowerCLI is installed.
PowerShell ISE Integration

PowerShell ISE process is same to PowerShell, only different is all the operation should be completed in PowerShell ISE window.

Reboot is not required in my environment. But anyhow please reboot if you see any issue.

The processes above integrate PowerCLI 6.5 with PowerCLI and PowerCLI ISE for current user only. If you want to integrate for all users on the machine, you need to refer to this article.
December 18, 2016