You could do this with PowerCLI using the New-VIProperty cmdlet. The below sample, curtesy of LucD, creates the new property FullFolderPath. The properties for a VM object contains a foldername, but it isn't the full folder path so you wouldn't be able to distinguish between duplicate folders. So if you were to run get-vm | ft name, folder it wouldn't be too helpful.
New-VIProperty -Name 'FullFolderPath' -ObjectType 'VirtualMachine' -Value {
param($vm)
function Get-ParentName{
param($object)
if($object.Folder){
$blue = Get-ParentName $object.Folder
$name = $object.Folder.Name
}
elseif($object.Parent -and $object.Parent.GetType().Name -like "Folder*"){
$blue = Get-ParentName $object.Parent
$name = $object.Parent.Name
}
elseif($object.ParentFolder){
$blue = Get-ParentName $object.ParentFolder
$name = $object.ParentFolder.Name
}
if("vm","Datacenters" -notcontains $name){
$blue + "/" + $name
}
else{
$blue
}
}
(Get-ParentName $vm).Remove(0,1)
} -Force | Out-Null
So you would first run the above code in your PowerCLI session. What you create with New-VIProperty only exists for that PowerCLI session. Once you close it, the new property is gone.
The you can run get-vm | ft name, fullfolderpath
Name FullFolderPath
---- --------------
MAIL01
WINDOWS07
EXCHANGE01
SERVER01 /Production
DC09 /Production
VCENTER_01 /Production
QUICKTAX /Taxes
vMA5.0
QUICKTAX_BACKUP_PRE2012_TAXES /Taxes/Backup
One thing to note about the output. In the case of the first few VMs, those are not in a VM folder. For the vMA5.0 VM, it is a vApp.
