Occasionally, reading values of a registry key may fail with a strange error message:
PS> $key = "Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\History\{35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}\0" PS> Get-ItemProperty -Path $key Get-ItemProperty : Specified cast is not valid. At line:1 char:1 + Get-ItemProperty -Path $key + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-ItemProperty], InvalidCastException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.InvalidCastException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetItemPropertyComma nd PS>
When this occurs, checking the registry key with regedit.exe reveals that one or more of the values in the key are damaged. In our example, the value “lParam” seems to be corrupted on all Windows machines. Regedit.exe reports “(invalid … value)”.
In this case, Get-ItemProperty will not read any value. You cannot exclude the value:
PS> Get-ItemProperty -Path $key -Include * -Exclude lParam Get-ItemProperty : Specified cast is not valid. At line:1 char:1 + Get-ItemProperty -Path $key -Include * -Exclude lParam + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-ItemProperty], InvalidCastException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.InvalidCastException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetItemPropertyCommand PS>
What you can do is read just the values that have valid content:
PS> Get-ItemProperty -Path $key -Name DSPath
DSPath : LocalGPO
PSPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersi
on\Group Policy\History\{35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}\0
PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersi
on\Group Policy\History\{35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}
PSChildName : 0
PSProvider : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry
PS>
