Powershell Separate csv data into separate rows - excel

Question

I have the following script and it gets me the info I need.
$Monitors = Get-WmiObject WmiMonitorID -Namespace root\wmi
$LogFile = "d:\monitors.csv"
"Manufacturer,Name,Serial" | Out-File $LogFile
ForEach ($Monitor in $Monitors)
{
$Manufacturer = ($Monitor.ManufacturerName|where {$_ -ne 0}|ForEach{[char]$_}) -join ""
$Name = ($Monitor.UserFriendlyName |where {$_ -ne 0}| ForEach{[char]$_}) -join ""
$Serial = ($Monitor.SerialNumberID |where {$_ -ne 0}| ForEach{[char]$_}) -join ""
"$Manufacturer,$Name,$Serial" | Out-File $LogFile -append
}
My problem is the data is exported to the excel spreadsheet like this..
Manufacturer,Name,Serial.
ACI,VE248,K8LMQS048382
HWP,HP P232,6CM8122DXL
HWP,HP P232,6CM7241DRB
I need it to be:
Manufacturer Name Serial
in the spreadsheet, and when I do the next pc, it adds to the next line and so on.
I have looked online and the examples just don't match.
Does anyone have any advice?

Answer 1

As others already commented, use Export-Csv to write out the wanted data in csv format, rather than constructing it manually.
That means your ForEach-Object loop should emit objects instead of lines of concatenated strings.
Also, nowadays, I would use the newer Get-CimInstance instead of Get-WmiObject (What's the difference)
Try
$LogFile = "d:\monitors.csv"
Get-CimInstance -ClassName WmiMonitorID -Namespace root\wmi | ForEach-Object {
[PsCustomObject]#{
Manufacturer = [string]::new($_.ManufacturerName, 0, $_.ManufacturerName.Length).Trim("`0")
Name = [string]::new($_.UserFriendlyName, 0, $_.UserFriendlyName.Length).Trim("`0")
Serial = [string]::new($_.SerialNumberID, 0, $_.SerialNumberID.Length).Trim("`0")
}
} | Export-Csv -Path $LogFile -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture
The -UseCulture switch makes sure the output csv file uses the same delimiter characters your locally installed Excel would expect, so you can simply double-click the file to open it in Excel