So you have got a list of Powered OFF VMs in vCenter and would like to perform a cleanup however you don't have any idea when this was powered OFF. Well there are three ways to find the powered OFF date.
1. Event Timestamp - highly reliable method
2. NVRAM Timestamp - average reliable method
3. Storage Timestamp - least reliable method
Prerequisites
Create a txt file named VMList.txt and paste the name of VMs one by one.
Step by Step Procedure
1. Save the VMList.txt in C:\Temp of your windows machine
2. Open PowerShell ISE and connect your vCenter
Connect-VIServer my-vcenter.xyz.intra
3. Input credentials and wait for the connection to establish.
4. Now paste the below script in the PowerShell ISE.
get-content "C:\Temp\VMList.txt" |
foreach {Get-VM -Name $_|
Select Name,PowerState,
@{N='Event Timestamp';E={
(Get-VIevent -Entity $_ -MaxSamples ([int]::MaxValue) |
where{$_ -is [VMware.Vim.VmPoweredOffEvent]} |
Sort-Object -Property CreatedTime)[-1].CreatedTime
}},
@{N='Storage Timestamp';E={$_.ExtensionData.Storage.Timestamp.ToLocalTime()}},
@{N='NVRAM Timestap';E={
$dsName = ($_.ExtensionData.LayoutEx.File | where {$_.Type -eq 'nvram'}).Name.Split(' ')[0].Trim('[]')
$ds = Get-Datastore -Name $dsName
New-PSDrive -Location $ds -Name DS -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root "\" | Out-Null
$file = Get-ChildItem -Path "DS:\$($_.Name)\$($_.Name).nvram"
Remove-PSDrive -Name DS -Confirm:$false
$file.LastWriteTime
}}
} |Export-csv "c:\Temp\output.csv"
5. Select this Script in your PowerShell ISE and run this.
6. You will get the output in C:\Temp\output.csv in the below format.
Any questions, ask in comments.
Cheers!
