VB.net and powershell variables - vb.net

Question

I have a Visual Studio form running with VB.net and I'm collecting info needed to setup an AD user. In the end, this info will need to simply be passed to Powershell with no return info needed. Before that though, I need it to check if a printer code has already been assigned to someone before allowing it to be submitted to another user. I have a simple powershell script written up for it.
(We use the Pager field to store the printer code.)
Import-Module ActiveDirectory
$Page = $args[0]
Get-ADUser -Filter { Pager -like $Page } | FT Name
I setup the code I found HERE, and attempted to modify it to my script but it keeps crashing on
Dim results As Collection(Of PSObject) = MyPipeline.Invoke()
It gives me: An unhandled exception of type 'System.Management.Automation.ParseException' occurred in System.Management.Automation.dll
If I run his little 6+5 basic example script, it works, but when I try to retrieve info and return a name, it doesn't like it. How can I get it to return the name of the person if it find it? And since it won't run, I'm not even sure if passing the printer code as $args[0] is going to work yet.

Answer 1

Your results is expecting a collection of PowerShell objects. When you pipe the Get-ADUser command to Format-Table, it effectively strips the object down to a stream of strings. Try without the | FT Name.
Import-Module ActiveDirectory #if you're using powershell 3 or later, this may be redundant
# $Page = $args[0] # don't need to do this
$results = Get-ADUser -Filter { Pager -like $args[0] }
Write-Verbose $results
#Write-Verbose $results.Name #try this if the above one works
Update:
Write-Verbose may be causing an issue.
Try this:
Get-ADUser -Filter { Pager -like $args[0] }
Just that one line as the total PS code. (Assuming you have PowerShell 3.0 or later, you don't need Import-Module) That line will return objects of type TypeName: Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADUser (from `Get-ADUser username | Get-Member).
You may also be able to use the .Net object type directly, without PowerShell. I'm not knowledgeable about .NET beyond what I picked up working with PowerShell.
Accessing AD using .NET, info from MSDN.