A litttle help formatting output from powershell?

Question

Hi all, I am working on a software inventory project and am (as will become obvious) a novice at powershell.  I have the script running so I get what I need, but the formatting is borderline un-useable.  I would like to see if anyone can point
me in the direction of creating one or two of the following: a single, collated file of all installed programs on all computers in the OU, filtered for duplicates (ie, only unique entries, not 37 instances of Office 2010 Service Pack 2), and/or an excel worksheet
with a page for each pc in the OU, and the list of installed programs on each page.  This is what I have so far:
$rtn = $null
Get-ADComputer -filter '*' -searchbase 'ou=levy chd, dc=doh,dc=ad,dc=state,dc=fl,dc=us'|
ForEach-Object {
$rtn = Test-Connection -CN $_.dnshostname -Count 1 -BufferSize 16 -Quiet
IF($rtn -match 'True') {write-output $_.name | out-file C:\chd38computers_ping=true.csv -Append }
ELSE { write-output $_.name | out-file C:\chd38computers_ping=false.txt -Append }
$computers = Import-Csv "C:\chd38computers_ping=true.csv"
foreach($obj in $computers){
Get-WmiObject -Class win32reg_addremoveprograms | Select DisplayName,Publisher,Version,Installdate | Sort Publisher -Descending| Export-Csv d:\installed_apps.csv -append
Thanks in advance for the help!
adam

Answer 1

To filter out duplicates, you can use the -unique switch for Select here:
Get-WmiObject -Class win32reg_addremoveprograms | Select DisplayName,Publisher,Version,Installdate -unique | Sort Publisher -Descending| Export-Csv d:\installed_apps.csv -append
To manipulate excel file from Powershell you will need to use New-Object -ComObject "Excel.Application". I'd add the result of each computer into an array and then use the ComObject to add the content to a new sheet. You can read more here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2013/04/03/excel-spreadsheets.aspx
tompa
http://tompaps.blogspot.com