Monthly Archives: June 2017

Powershell script to remove duplicate, old modules

Azure, Cloud, PowerShell

If you’ve installed modules in powershell such as the AzureRM collection, and have updated to newer versions of said modules, it’s possible that you might have both the old and new versions installed. This can slow down some commands in powershell (get-command for example)

I wrote a small script to remove old versions of Powershell modules using what I found at https://windowsserver.uservoice.com/forums/301869-powershell/suggestions/14934876-update-module-needs-flag-to-remove-previous-versio) as a starter.

Note that when I say “Remove old versions” I mean it leaves the most current one you have and removes the older ones – if your system is 3 versions behind, it will not go fetch new commands first (though it does remind you of the command to do that)

write-host "this will remove all old versions of installed modules"
write-host "be sure to run this as an admin" -foregroundcolor yellow
write-host "(You can update all your Azure RM modules with update-module Azurerm -force)"

$mods = get-installedmodule

foreach ($Mod in $mods)
{
  write-host "Checking $($mod.name)"
  $latest = get-installedmodule $mod.name
  $specificmods = get-installedmodule $mod.name -allversions
  write-host "$($specificmods.count) versions of this module found [ $($mod.name) ]"
  
  foreach ($sm in $specificmods)
  {
    if ($sm.version -ne $latest.version)
	{
	  write-host "uninstalling $($sm.name) - $($sm.version) [latest is $($latest.version)]"
	  $sm | uninstall-module -force
	  write-host "done uninstalling $($sm.name) - $($sm.version)"
          write-host "    --------"
	}
	
  }
  write-host "------------------------"
}
write-host "done"

Hope this helps!

Update 3-2018:

The script above was originally missing a -force parameter, this has been fixed.

While troubleshooting the script above, I wanted a fast, non-destructive way to see what modules I had installed that had multiple versions.

I created the script below for that purpose, you may find it useful:

write-host "this will report all modules with duplicate (older and newer) versions installed"
write-host "be sure to run this as an admin" -foregroundcolor yellow
write-host "(You can update all your Azure RMmodules with update-module Azurerm -force)"

$mods = get-installedmodule

foreach ($Mod in $mods)
{
  write-host "Checking $($mod.name)"
  $latest = get-installedmodule $mod.name
  $specificmods = get-installedmodule $mod.name -allversions
  write-host "$($specificmods.count) versions of this module found [ $($mod.name) ]"
  
 
  foreach ($sm in $specificmods)
  {
     if ($sm.version -eq $latest.version) 
	 { $color = "green"}
	 else
	 { $color = "magenta"}
     write-host " $($sm.name) - $($sm.version) [highest installed is $($latest.version)]" -foregroundcolor $color
	
  }
  write-host "------------------------"
}
write-host "done"
  • Jack

Beware! Changes to AzureRM powershell commandlets may break your online scripts!

Azure, Cloud, PowerShell, Troubleshooting

This week I ran into an interesting problem:

A powershell commandlet failed when run on Azure Automation Services, but it worked for me on my local machine.

It was a simple command

get-azurermsubscription

if you’re not familiar with it, it brings back a list of all the subscriptions you have access to in Azure.

The problem is, it used to return properties named “SubscriptionName” and “SubscriptionID”

These were recently changed to “Name” and “ID” causing code that used the old properties to fail.

This brings to light the importance of keeping your azureRM modules up to date on your local workstation, so you’re testing the same thing. In my case, I was using version 3.8, but 4.1 was current.

My last post listed a few commands of interest for keeping up with installed modules, as a recap, here are a few of interest:

Update-module AzureRM -force #this will fetch the latest versions of all your azureRM.* modules
get-installedmodule #lists installed modules (with a twist - it only shows the highest version you have installed if you have more than one)

One problem I ran into today: After updating all my Modules, powershell was slow as can be.  I had installed updated versions, but hadn’t removed the old ones.

Maybe there is a better way, and if so, please comment below, but I ended up creating a small script to remove prior versions. For findability, that’ll be in my next post.