Question

I am having some trouble with the code below. I am trying to figure out how to get the output working for all user profiles instead of just the current user. If I use the $shell.NameSpace(34) the code works (the two lines commented out). But when I try override the shell.namespace and manually add the path I get an error that the method items does not exist. Wondering what the best way to fix or get around this issue is.

Actual error message: Method invocation failed because [System.String] doesn’t contain a method named ‘Items’.

Thanks for the help in advanced.

$shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$colProfiles = Get-ChildItem "C:\Users\" -Name
#$hist = $shell.NameSpace(34)
#Write-Host $hist

foreach ( $userProfile in $colProfiles )
{
    [string]$hist = "C:\Users\$userProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History"
    $date = ""
    $url = ""

    $hist.Items() | foreach {
        ""; ""; 
        if ($_.IsFolder) 
        {
            $siteFolder = $_.GetFolder
            $siteFolder.Items() | foreach {
                $site = $_
                ""; 
                if ($site.IsFolder) 
                {
                    $pageFolder  = $site.GetFolder
                    Write-Host $pageFolder
                    $pageFolder.Items() | foreach {
                        $url  = $pageFolder.GetDetailsOf($_,0)
                        $date = $pageFolder.GetDetailsOf($_,2)
                        echo "$date $url"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

According to the documentation you can create a namespace object from a path string.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb774085(v=vs.85).aspx

So you can do this:

$shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$colProfiles = Get-ChildItem "C:\Users\" -Name

foreach ( $userProfile in $colProfiles )
{
   [string] $histPath = "C:\Users\$userProfile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History"
   $hist = $shell.NameSpace($histPath)

    $date = ""
    $url = ""

    $hist.Items() | foreach {
        ""; ""; 
        if ($_.IsFolder) 
        {
            $siteFolder = $_.GetFolder
            $siteFolder.Items() | foreach {
                $site = $_
                ""; 
                if ($site.IsFolder) 
                {
                    $pageFolder  = $site.GetFolder
                    Write-Host $pageFolder
                    $pageFolder.Items() | foreach {
                        $url  = $pageFolder.GetDetailsOf($_,0)
                        $date = $pageFolder.GetDetailsOf($_,2)
                        echo "$date $url"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}