26/02/14 - I've updated this script to accept pipeline input and work a little more efficiently when removing multiple machines.

It’s one of those things that shouldn’t happen, but which inevitable does. Someone removes a View managed VM from vSphere, and View refuses to realise it’s gone. It also sometimes happens when machines fail to provision correctly (i.e., due to lack of available storage). The procedure is easy enough to follow, but it’s time-consuming and prone to error. In order to make the cleanup operation easier, I wrote up a quick function below. It relies on the free Quest AD CMDLets.

#Requires -PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement
 
function Remove-StuckVDIMachineFromAdamDatabase {
    <#
    .SYNOPSIS
    Removes an object from View's ADAM database
    
    .DESCRIPTION
    Finds a computer object in View's ADAM database which represents a machine.
    Probably one stuck in a Deleting "(Missing)" state. Deletes it (with confirmation)
 
    .PARAMETER Computer
    The name of the computer to search for.
 
    .PARAMETER ConnectionServer
    The connection server. Is set by default to "yourconnectionserver".
 
    .EXAMPLE
    Removes a desktop called "Desktop01"
    
    Remove-StuckVDIMachineFromAdamDatabase -Computer "Desktop01"    

    .EXAMPLE
    Removes each of an array of computer names passed as an argument

    Remove-StuckVDIMachineFromAdamDatabase $arrRogueEntries

    .EXAMPLE
    Uses the pipeline to remove each of an array of stuck machines

    $arrPipeline | Remove-StuckVDIMachineFromAdamDatabase 
    
    .NOTES
    Ben Neise 26/02/2014
    
    #>
    param (
        [Parameter(
            Mandatory = $true,
            Position = 0,
            ValueFromPipeline = $true,
            ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true
        )]
        [Array]
        $Computer,
 
        [Parameter(
            Mandatory = $false,
            Position = 1
        )]
        [String]
        $ConnectionServer = "MyConnectionServer"
    )
    begin {
        try {
            Connect-QADService -Service $ConnectionServer -ErrorAction "Stop" | Out-Null
        }
        catch {
            Write-Error "Can't connect to QADService on $ConnectionServer"
        }
        $objAdamDB = Get-QADObject -IncludeAllProperties -SizeLimit 0 -SearchRoot "OU=Servers,DC=vdi,DC=vmware,DC=int"
    }
    process {
        foreach ($comp in $Computer){
            $objAdamDB | Where-Object {$_."pae-DisplayName" -eq $comp} | foreach-Object {
                Write-Output ("Found ADAM record: " + $_."pae-DisplayName")
                $_ | Remove-QADObject
            }
        }
    }
    end {
        Disconnect-QADService -Service $ConnectionServer
    }
}

You’ll want to change yourconnectionserver to - well - your connection server. Obviously the normal caveats apply: the ones about running scripts you download from the internet in your Production environment.