function get-vmcreationdate { <# .Synopsis Gets where possible vm creation date. .Description This function will return object with information about creation time, method, month, creator for particular vm. VMname : SomeVM12 CreatedTime : 8/10/2012 11:48:18 AM CreatedMonth : August CreationMethod : Cloned Creator : office\greg This function will display NoEvent value in properties in case when your VC does no longer have information about those particular events, or your vm events no longer have entries about being created. If your VC database has longer retension date it is more possible that you will find this event. .Example Get-VMCreationdate -VMnames "my_vm1","My_otherVM" This will return objects that contain creation date information for vms with names myvm1 and myvm2 .Example Get-VM -Location 'Cluster1' |Get-VMCreationdate This will return objects that contain creation date information for vms that are located in Cluster1 .Example Get-view -viewtype virtualmachine -SearchRoot (get-datacenter 'mydc').id|Get-VMCreationDate This will return objects that contain creation date information for vms that are located in datacenter container 'mydc'. If you are using this function within existing loop where you have vms from get-view cmdlet, you can pass them via pipe or as VMnames parameter. .Example $report=get-cluster 'cl-01'|Get-VMCreationdate $report | export-csv c:\myreport.csv Will store all reported creationtimes object in $report array variable and export report to csv file. You can also filter the report before writing it to csv file using select $report | Where-Object {$_.CreatedMonth -eq "October"} | Select VMName,CreatedMonth So that you will see only vms that were created in October. .Example get-vmcreationdate -VMnames "my_vm1",testvm55 WARNING: my_vm1 could not be found, typo? VMname : testvm55 CreatedTime : 10/5/2012 2:24:03 PM CreatedMonth : October CreationMethod : NewVM Creator : home\greg In case when you privided vm that does not exists in yor infrastructure, a warning will be displayed. You can still store the whole report in $report variable, but it will not include any information about missing vm creation dates. A warning will be still displayed only for your information that there was probably a typo in the vm name. .Parameter VMnames This parameter should contain virtual machine objects or strings that represents vm names. It is possible to feed this function wiith VM objects that come from get-vm or from get-view. .Notes NAME: Get-VMCreationdate AUTHOR: Grzegorz Kulikowski LASTEDIT: 27/11/2012 NOT WORKING ? #powercli @ irc.freenode.net .Link http://psvmware.wordpress.com #> param( [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true,Mandatory = $true)] [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()] [Object[]]$VMnames ) process { foreach ($vm in $VMnames){ $ReportedVM = ""|Select VMname,CreatedTime,CreatedMonth,CreationMethod,Creator if ($CollectedEvent=$vm|Get-VMEvents -types 'VmBeingDeployedEvent','VmRegisteredEvent','VmClonedEvent','VmBeingCreatedEvent' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) { if($CollectedEvent.gettype().isArray){$CollectedEvent=$CollectedEvent|?{$_ -is [vmware.vim.VmRegisteredEvent]}} $CollectedEventType=$CollectedEvent.gettype().name $CollectedEventMonth = "{0:MMMM}" -f $CollectedEvent.CreatedTime $CollectedEventCreationDate=$CollectedEvent.CreatedTime $CollectedEventCreator=$CollectedEvent.Username switch ($CollectedEventType) { 'VmClonedEvent' {$CreationMethod = 'Cloned'} 'VmRegisteredEvent' {$CreationMethod = 'RegisteredFromVMX'} 'VmBeingDeployedEvent' {$CreationMethod = 'VmFromTemplate'} 'VmBeingCreatedEvent' {$CreationMethod = 'NewVM'} default {$CreationMethod='Error'} } $ReportedVM.VMname=$CollectedEvent.vm.Name $ReportedVM.CreatedTime=$CollectedEventCreationDate $ReportedVM.CreatedMonth=$CollectedEventMonth $ReportedVM.CreationMethod=$CreationMethod $ReportedVM.Creator=$CollectedEventCreator }else { if ($?) { if($vm -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualMachine]){$ReportedVM.VMname=$vm.name} else {$ReportedVM.VMname=$vm.ToString()} $ReportedVM.CreatedTime = 'NoEvent' $ReportedVM.CreatedMonth = 'NoEvent' $ReportedVM.CreationMethod = 'NoEvent' $ReportedVM.Creator = 'NoEvent' } else { $ReportedVM = $null Write-Warning "$VM could not be found, typo?" } } $ReportedVM } } } | 