Get a list of services and “Log On As” accounts

Wanted to find what account our NetBackup service is running under on a bunch of servers –

You have to use WMI for this coz Get-Service doesn’t show the Log On As user.

Wheee!! Had a tweet from Jeffrey Snover for this post.

 

@rakheshster Try this form to speed things up:
Gwmi Win32_Service -cn S1,S2,S2 -Filter ‘Name = “NetBackup Client Service”‘ | ft

— jsnover (@jsnover) June 1, 2016

 

Following on that tweet I noticed something odd.

The following command works –

Or this –

In the second one I am explicitly casting the arguments as an array.

But this variant doesn’t work –

That generates the following error –

Get-WmiObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -cn $Servers -Filter ‘Name= “NetBackup Client Service …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Get-WmiObject], COMException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : GetWMICOMException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetWmiObjectCommand

Get-WmiObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -cn $Servers  -Filter ‘Name= “NetBackup Client Service …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Get-WmiObject], COMException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : GetWMICOMException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetWmiObjectCommand

The error is generated for each entry in the array.

It looks like when I pass the list of servers as an array variable PowerShell uses a different way to connect to each server (PowerShell remoting/ WinRM) while if I specify the list in-line it behaves differently. I didn’t search much on this but found this Reddit thread with the same issue. Something to keep in mind …