User`s guide

Procedure
1. On your VCM Collector or managed Windows machine, open a command prompt.
2. Run powershell.exe from the command line.
3. Paste your script into the PowerShell window.
If your script does not run, press Enter.
4. Make sure that your script runs without errors.
Errors appear in red in the PowerShell window.
5. If errors occur, resolve them before you proceed.
A valid script returns a set of XML content without any formatting, white space, carriage returns, or
line feeds at the end of elements, nodes, or attributes.
What to do next
Install PowerShell on your VCM managed machines. See "Install PowerShell" on page 106.
Install PowerShell
Verify that PowerShell 2.0 is installed on each VCM managed Windows machine used to collect Windows
Custom Information (WCI). PowerShell 2.0 is supported on all platforms that support PowerShell 1.0.
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PowerShell is installed by default on Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 machines.
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For Windows XP, 2003, 2003 R2, 2008, and Vista machines, you must install PowerShell separately.
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You cannot install PowerShell on Windows 2000 or NT4 machines.
Because of its ability to set the execution policy at the process level, PowerShell 2.0 is the base requirement
for WCI in VCM. If you run the standard WCI non-inline collection filters against PowerShell 1.0 VCM
managed machines, the collection process will fail.
If PowerShell is not installed on the target VCM managed machine, the WCI collection returns a Not
Executed status. See "View Windows Custom Information Job Status Details" on page 108.
What to do next
Reboot the VCM managed machine after you install or upgrade PowerShell to ensure that collections
work properly.
Collect Windows Custom Information Data
Use the Windows Custom Information (WCI) data type to perform user-defined, script-based collections
on your VCM managed machines. To collect the custom data, you build a collection filter that includes a
script with parameters to run the script and process the results.
When you use the script-based filter in a collection, the VCM Agent calls a script engine to run the script,
parse the results to return the collected data to the VCM database, and display the results in the VCM
Console. During the collection process, the VCM Agent starts PowerShell, which runs the script and
generates the XML result file. The Agent parses the XML result into a format that VCM can use to check
for changes, and returns the changes to the Collector.
vCenter Configuration Manager Installation and Getting Started Guide
106 VMware, Inc.