Removing multiple licences from a user using powershell

Question

I'm trying to remove multiple licences from a user or users within my .xlsx file. Here is my code

$users = Import-XLSX '\\server\c$\User Creation\ADUsersRemoval.xlsx' |
    where {$_.isLicensed -eq $true}
foreach ($user in $users)
{
    $Firstname = $User.Firstname
    $Lastname   = $User.Lastname
    $upn= "[email protected]"
    Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $upn -RemoveLicense "Domain:POWER_BI_STANDARD","Domain:FLOW_FREE"
}

I keep getting the error

Set-MsolUserLicense : Unable to assign this license because it is invalid. Use the Get-MsolAccountSku cmdlet to retrieve a list of valid licenses.

Personally I think its because some users may not have one of those licences. If I want to remove one licence and they all had the same licence it would work fine but with two licences and some users don't have both, it just throws up the error.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

I tested your theory about trying to remove a single license that is not assigned. I do get the same error message. — AdminOfThings
Interesting. Must be a way to get it to check if licences is true (assigned) then remove or something along the lines otherwise skip or do nothing — Kidbuu

AdminOfThings AdminOfThings · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-19T11:42:09

If you are trying to remove a valid license string from a user who does not have the license assigned, it will produce the error you see. You will need to build in logic to only remove licenses that are assigned.

You can do this with Compare-Object, but it requires an additional query for user information using Get-MsolUser. If you already have user license assignment in your excel file, then this can be tweaked to run a lot quicker.

$users = Import-XLSX '\\server\c$\User Creation\ADUsersRemoval.xlsx' |
    where {$_.isLicensed -eq $true}
$Licenses = "Domain:POWER_BI_STANDARD","Domain:FLOW_FREE"

foreach ($user in $users)
{
    $Firstname = $User.Firstname
    $Lastname   = $User.Lastname
    $upn= "[email protected]"
    $LicensesToRemove = (Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $upn).Licenses.AccountSkuId |
        Compare-Object $Licenses -IncludeEqual -ExcludeDifferent -PassThru
    Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $upn -RemoveLicenses $LicensesToRemove
}

Explanation:

$Licenses contains all of the licenses you'd like to remove. During your foreach loop, a new variable $LicensesToRemove will represent the assigned licenses that match your $Licenses items.

Compare-Object is used to provide the value to LicensesToRemove. -IncludeEqual -ExcludeDifferent ensures that we only output licenses that match in the user's assigned licenses and the licenses you want to remove. -PassThru allows for only the matched license text string to be output.

Depending on the size of your user list, there will be a point where it is beneficial to collect user license assignment before entering your loop. Running Get-MsolUser and Set-MsolUserLicense in each iteration could be less efficient than one all-encompassing Get-MsolUser before entering the loop.

Removing multiple licences from a user using powershell

1 Answers