Browsing for a file and selecting a Virtual Machine on hyper-v

Question

Hi everyone, sorry if the title is a bit problematic.
New to Powershell here, I'm trying to create a script that will let me Browse for a .vhd file, and then let me select a Virtual Machine to attach it to using SCSI attachment.
So far I managed to attach and detach the VHD files using add-vmharddiskdrive, but using read-host I have to manually enter the address of the .vhd file every time, as well as using read-host to input the VM name.
Is there any way to browse for the file, select it, and then run the add-vmharddiskdrive command?
So far the script I have is this:
$VHDLocation = Read-Host Enter VHD Location
$VMName = Read-Host Enter VM Name
Add-VMHardDiskDrive -VMName $VMName -Path $VHDLocation -ControllerType SCSI
Basically I want to shorten the time it takes to manually type the vhd location and the VM name. Any way to do that?
Sorry for long post, thanks everyone in advance, have a nice day :)

Answer 1

I couldn't get the Select-fromgridview to work sadly, but after snooping around on several different forums I managed to copy-paste some codes and after some work and trial and error I got the script to work perfectly, except for one problem. When the box
pops up to let met select a VM, it pops in the background, as in, behind the ISE itself. So I have to alt tab to see it. Is there any way to make it pop to the front?
I'd go through the script myself but like I said I'm very new to this and honestly most of this could be Chinese for all I know.
Again thanks in advance!
set-executionpolicy unrestricted
############## The script for browsing #############
Function Get-FileName($initialDirectory)
 [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms") |
 Out-Null
 $OpenFileDialog = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog
 $OpenFileDialog.initialDirectory = $initialDirectory
 $OpenFileDialog.filter = "All files (*.*)| *.*"
 $OpenFileDialog.ShowDialog() | Out-Null
 $OpenFileDialog.filename
} #end function Get-FileName
############## Sets the VHD location parameter to the selected file from above, and input VM Name  #############
$VHDLocation = Get-FileName -initialDirectory "c:\fso"
############## Select a VM ######
[void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")
[void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing") 
$objForm = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form 
$objForm.Text = "Select a Computer"
$objForm.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(300,200) 
$objForm.StartPosition = "CenterScreen"
# Got rid of the block of code related to KeyPreview and KeyDown events.
$OKButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$OKButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,120)
$OKButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23)
$OKButton.Text = "OK"
# Got rid of the Click event for the OK button, and instead just assigned its DialogResult property to OK.
$OKButton.DialogResult = [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::OK
$objForm.Controls.Add($OKButton)
# Setting the form's AcceptButton property causes it to automatically intercept the Enter keystroke and
# treat it as clicking the OK button (without having to write your own KeyDown events).
$objForm.AcceptButton = $OKButton
$CancelButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$CancelButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(150,120)
$CancelButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23)
$CancelButton.Text = "Cancel"
# Got rid of the Click event for the Cancel button, and instead just assigned its DialogResult property to Cancel.
$CancelButton.DialogResult = [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::Cancel
$objForm.Controls.Add($CancelButton)
# Setting the form's CancelButton property causes it to automatically intercept the Escape keystroke and
# treat it as clicking the OK button (without having to write your own KeyDown events).
$objForm.CancelButton = $CancelButton
$objLabel = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label
$objLabel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(10,20) 
$objLabel.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20) 
$objLabel.Text = "Please select a computer:"
$objForm.Controls.Add($objLabel) 
$objListBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.ListBox 
$objListBox.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(10,40) 
$objListBox.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20) 
$objListBox.Height = 80
Get-VM | Format-List name | Out-File -filepath c:\VMNames.txt
${C:\VMNames.txt} = ${C:\VMNames.txt} | select -skip 2
function Remove-Topline ( [string[]]$path, [int]$skip=2 ) {
  if ( -not (Test-Path $path -PathType Leaf) ) {
    throw "invalid filename"
  ls $path |
    % { iex "`${$($_.fullname)} = `${$($_.fullname)} | select -skip $skip" }
(Get-Content C:\VMNames.txt) | 
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "Name :", ""} | 
Set-Content C:\VMNames.txt
Get-Content C:\VMNames.txt | ForEach-Object {[void] $objListBox.Items.Add($_)}
$objForm.Controls.Add($objListBox) 
$objForm.Topmost = $True
# Now, instead of having events in the form assign a value to a variable outside of their scope, the code that calls the dialog
# instead checks to see if the user pressed OK and selected something from the box, then grabs that value.
$result = $objForm.ShowDialog()
if ($result -eq [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::OK -and $objListBox.SelectedIndex -ge 0)
    $selection = $objListBox.SelectedItem
    $selection
    # Do something with $selection
$VMName = $selection.Trim()
############## Dismounts the VHD if it's mounted on host, and then mounts it on VHD #############
Dismount-VHD $VHDLocation
Add-VMHardDiskDrive -VMName $VMName -Path $VHDLocation -ControllerType SCSI
############## Detaches the VHD from VM and returns it to the host #############
Add-Type -AssemblyName Microsoft.VisualBasic
[Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction]::MsgBox('Press Ok when you are ready to detach the VHD', 'MsgBoxSetForeground,Information', 'Confirm')
Remove-VMHardDiskDrive -VMName $VMname -ControllerType SCSI -ControllerNumber 0 -ControllerLocation 0
Mount-VHD $VHDLocation