Remove a CIM instance from a computer. Equivalent to the old WMI cmdlet Remove-WmiObject , the CIM version uses WSMAN (WinRM) to connect to remote machines and is therefore an order of magnitude faster.
Syntax
Remove-CimInstance [-InputObject] CimInstance [-ComputerName String[]] [-ResourceUri Uri]
[-OperationTimeoutSec UInt32] [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [CommonParameters]
Remove-CimInstance [-InputObject] CimInstance -CimSession CimSession[] [-ResourceUri Uri]
[-OperationTimeoutSec UInt32] [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [CommonParameters]
Remove-CimInstance [-Query] String [[-Namespace] String] [-ComputerName String[]]
[-OperationTimeoutSec UInt32] [-QueryDialect String] [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [CommonParameters]
Remove-CimInstance [-Query] String [[-Namespace] String] -CimSession CimSession[]
[-OperationTimeoutSec UInt32] [-QueryDialect String][-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [CommonParameters]
Key
-CimSession CimSession[]
Run the command using the specified CIM session. Enter a variable that contains the CIM session, or a command
that creates or gets the CIM session, such as the New-CimSession or Get-CimSession cmdlets.
See about_CimSessions.
-ComputerName String[]
The computer on which you want to run the CIM operation. You can specify a fully qualified domain name
(FQDN), or a NetBIOS name.
If you specify this parameter, the cmdlet creates a temporary session to the specified computer using the
WsMan protocol.If you do not specify this parameter, the cmdlet performs the operation on the local computer
using Component Object Model (COM).
If multiple operations are being performed on the same computer, using a CIM session gives better performance.
-InputObject CimInstance
Specifies a CIM instance object to be removed from the CIM server.
Note: The input object passed to the cmdlet is not changed, only the instance in the CIM server is removed.
-Namespace String
Specifies the namespace for the CIM operation.
The default namespace is root/cimv2.
NOTE: You can use tab completion to browse the list of namespaces, because wps_2 gets a list of namespaces
from the local WMI server to provide the list of namespaces.
-OperationTimeoutSec UInt32
Specifies the amount of time that the cmdlet waits for a response from the computer.
By default, the value of this parameter is 0, which means that the cmdlet uses the default timeout value for
the server.
If the OperationTimeoutSec parameter is set to a value less than the robust connection retry timeout of 3
minutes, network failures that last more than the value of the OperationTimeoutSec parameter are not
recoverable, because the operation on the server times out before the client can reconnect.
-Query String
A query to run on the CIM server. You can specify the query dialect using the -QueryDialect parameter.
If the value specified contains double quotes (“), single quotes (‘), or a backslash (\), you must escape
those characters by prefixing them with the backslash (\) character. If the value specified uses the WQL LIKE
operator, then you must escape the following characters by enclosing them in square brackets ([]): percent
(%), underscore (_), or opening square bracket ([).
You cannot use a metadata query to retrieve a list of classes or an event query. To retrieve a list of
classes, use the Get-CimClass cmdlet. To retrieve an event query, use the Register-CimIndicationEvent cmdlet.
You can specify the query dialect using the -QueryDialect parameter.
-QueryDialect String
Specifies the query language used for the Query parameter.
psdx_paramvalues WQL or CQL.
The default value is WQL.
-ResourceUri Uri
Specifies the resource uniform resource identifier (URI) of the resource class or instance. The URI is used to
identify a specific type of resource, such as disks or processes, on a computer.
A URI consists of a prefix and a path to a resource. For example:
http://schemas.microsoft.com/wbem/wsman/1/wmi/root/cimv2/Win32_LogicalDisk
http://intel.com/wbem/wscim/1/amt-schema/1/AMT_GeneralSettings
By default, if you do not specify this parameter, the DMTF standard resource URI
http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-schema/2/ is used and the class name is appended to it.
ResourceURI can only be used with CIM sessions created using the WSMan protocol, or when specifying the
ComputerName parameter, which creates a CIM session using WSMan. If you specify this parameter without
specifying the ComputerName parameter, or if you specify a CIM session created using DCOM protocol, you will
get an error, because the DCOM protocol does not support the -ResourceURI parameter.
If both the ResourceUri parameter and the Filter parameter are specified, the Filter parameter is ignored.
-Confirm
Prompt for confirmation before executing the command.
-WhatIf
Describe what would happen if you executed the command without actually executing it.
CommonParameters:
-Verbose, -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -WarningAction, -WarningVariable,
-OutBuffer, PipelineVariable -OutVariable.
You can specify the CIM instance to remove by using either a CIM instance object retrieved by the Get-CimInstance cmdlet, or by specifying a query.
If the -InputObject parameter is not specified, the cmdlet works in one of the following ways:
Standard Alias for Remove-CimInstance: rcim
Examples
Removes the CIM instances that start with the character string SS64 from the class named Win32_Environment using the Query parameter:
PS C:\> Remove-CimInstance -Query 'Select * from Win32_Environment where name LIKE "SS64%"ꞌ
Start an instance of calc.exe, use the Get-CimInstance cmdlet to retrieve a CIM instance object, then pass to Remove-CimInstance which removes the CIM instance(s):
PS> calc.exe
PS> $var = Get-CimInstance -Query 'Select * from Win32_Process where name LIKE "calc%"'
PS> Remove-CimInstance –InputObject $var
“A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means I survived” ~ Chris Cleave
Related PowerShell Cmdlets:
Get-CimInstance - Get a managed resource (storage, network, software etc)
Invoke-CimMethod - Invoke a method of a CIM class or CIM instance.