Ok, what I want is to feed the script a computer list, then check path for specific file existance on each machine, and write results to Output.txt

The following script is erroring out when I try to pipe out empty $i when path does not exist.
An empty pipe element is not allowed

I can write to command window with write-host command, but can't pipe out to Out-File Output.txt
Any suggestions greatly appreciated

## script here
$colItems = Get-Content -Path D:\Computers.txt
foreach($i in $colItems)

{ if (Test-Path "\\$i\Blah\Blah\Blah\*" -include ExchangeInfo*.exe) 
   {"$i has the file ExchangeInfo*.exe"} | Out-File Output.txt 
      else
{write-host "$i DOES NOT HAVE the file ExchangeInfo*.exe"} | Out-File Output.txt }

Here's something I use, probably more than you need.

[int]$installed=0
[int]$notinstalled=0
[int]$notonline=0
[int]$mytotal=0
[array]$myresults=@()

d:\computers.txt | %{if (test-connection $_ -count 1 -q)
{
if (test-path "\\$_\c$\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE")
{
$myresults+= "$_ : Office 2007 Installed"
$installed++
}
else
{
$myresult+= "$_ : Office 2007 not Installed"
$notinstalled++
}
}
else
{
$myresults+= "$_ : Not Online"
$notonline++
}
$mytotal++
}

write-host Installed $installed `nNot Installed $notinstalled `nOffline $notonline `nTotal $mytotal
$myresults | out-file d:\test3.txt

First off: Write-Host only does just that. Write to the host. It will not send anything through the pipe. Instead, use Tee-Object to write to a file and output to the console. Tee-Object is one way out of several, for simple operations like this, it should work just fine.

Second: Watch placement of brackets {}. Your If and Else statements won't pipe through either. the pipe must be done inside the statment.

$colItems = Get-Content -Path D:\Computers.txt

foreach($i in $colItems) {
if (Test-Path "\\$i\Blah\Blah\Blah\*" -include ExchangeInfo*.exe) {
"$i has the file ExchangeInfo*.exe" | Tee-Obect Output.txt
}
else {
"$i DOES NOT HAVE the file ExchangeInfo*.exe" | Tee-Obect Output.txt
}
}

Thanks guys,

DiffyRiot - looks like you need Get-Content -Path d:\computers.txt Otherwise I got an error: "Cannot execute a document in the middle of a pipeline"
But it works, thanks


Cruisader03 - tee-object instead of Out-File is nice, thanks

Yep, you're right... My bad :-)