I have a process that would traditionally be run like so (in the command line):
filepath.exe #"respfile.resp"
where respfile.resp is a response file that has command line arguments for the executable.
Running the command like that works as desired in the command prompt.
However I am trying to use a powershell script to run multiple programs. Here is what I have:
if (Test-Path $respPath){
$executionResposne = Start-Process -NoNewWindow -Wait -PassThru -FilePath $bimlcExePath -ArgumentList $respPath
if ($executionResposne.ExitCode -eq 1){
Write-Output "Unable to successfully run the process. Exiting program."
return
}
}
and I am getting the following error message:
Error:: filepath\to\resp\file Data at the root level is invalid.
How can I make this work?
You need to embed the quotes for the interpreter:
-ArgumentList "#`"$respPath`""
Related
I wrote a ps1 script to automate some package installation but the strange part is when I run the command snippet for executing the .exe file for SEP (Symantec Endpoint Protection) , it is executing fine , but when I execute the entire script , it does run the command snippet.
Iam only running a simple .exe file , and even if I run it manually , it does not show any installer , rather it installs silently in the background.
So in the script, Iam only running the .exe file, thats it .
Should I be giving any wait time or any other inputs ?
Start-Process -Wait -FilePath "C:\Temp\Symantec-Windows\SEP 14.3.3384.1000 x64.exe" -passthru
$SymVersion = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product -ComputerName $hostname | Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.Name -eq "symantec endpoint protection"} | Format-List -Property version, InstallState, name
echo $SymVersion
if($SymVersion)
{
echo 'Symantec is successfully installed' -ForegroundColor Green
}
else
{
echo 'Symantec is not successfully installed' -ForegroundColor Red
}
The symantec antivirus exe files are made for silent installations. If you want to proceed with GUI mode, better unzip the file and use MSI file with arguments. With your current script,Its better to check the process is exited with code 0. The following code is not tested.
$process = Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Temp\Symantec-Windows\SEP 14.3.3384.1000 x64.exe" -passthru -Wait
if($process.ExitCode -ne 0)
{
throw "Installation process returned error code: $($process.ExitCode)"
} else { Write-Host "Installation Successful"}
$argList = "-file `"C:\Users\bdl\Desktop\jhansi\PowerShell_Scripts\dialog.ps1`""
Start powershell -argumentlist $argList -NoNewWindow
I am trying to open another powershell terminal from the current script to execute the current script output. Another powershell terminal is opening but it is blinking continuously. The above two lines of code i have written but it is blinking. please tell me where is the mistake in the above two lines.
You can try something like this:
$ArgList = "C:\Users\bdl\Desktop\jhansi\PowerShell_Scripts\dialog.ps1"
Start-Process -FilePath PowerShell -ArgumentList $ArgList -NoNewWindow -Wait
You can also check if the script called in PowerShell returns successfully or not by adding an exit code into it (Exit 0 means it succeed and Exit 1 if it fails) with:
$Exe = (Start-Process -FilePath PowerShell -ArgumentList $ArgList -NoNewWindow -Wait -PassThru).ExitCode
If ($Exe -ne 0)
{
Write-Host "An error has occured while running the script."
}
As the exit code other than 0 means the script didn't finish properly.
I have an update script for running the Dell Command Update tool. In short dcu-cli.exe. The thing now is than when i run the same script code on the computer local then everything runs OK but when i run the exact same code in a script with invoke-command(and yes i have full admin rights) than the exitcode is 2 meaning An unknown application error has occurred instead of 0 (everything OK)
It is a very large script so i created a new one to debug this. This is the shorted code:
Invoke-Command -ComputerName "MyComputer" -ScriptBlock {
$ExitCode = 0
#Declare path and arguments
$DcuCliPath = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\CommandUpdate\dcu-cli.exe'
$DellCommand = "/applyUpdates -autoSuspendBitLocker=enable -outputLog=C:\Dell_Update.log"
#Verify Dell Command | Update exists
If (Test-Path -Path $DcuCliPath) {
$objWMI = Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem
Write-Host ("Dell Model [{0}]" -f $objWMI.Model.Trim())
$serviceName = "DellClientManagementService"
Write-Host ("Service [{0}] is currently [{1}]" -f $serviceName, (Get-Service $serviceName).Status)
If ((Get-Service $serviceName).Status -eq 'Stopped') {
Start-Service $serviceName
Write-Host "Service [$serviceName] started"
}
#Update the system with the latest drivers
Write-Host "Starting Dell Command | Update tool with arguments [$DellCommand] dcu-cli found at [$DcuCliPath]"
$ExitCode = (Start-Process -FilePath ($DcuCliPath) -ArgumentList ($DellCommand) -PassThru -Wait).ExitCode
Write-Host ("Dell Command | Update tool finished with ExitCode: [$ExitCode] current Win32 ExitCode: [$LastExitCode] Check log for more information: C:\Dell_Update.log")
}
}
When i remove the Invoke-Command -ComputerName "MyComputer" -ScriptBlock { and then copy + run the script local on the PC then the exitcode = 0
What i also noticed than when i run the command via 'Invoke-Command' then there is also no log file created as i passed along in the arguments... So my best guess is something is going wrong with local an remote paths?
So what am i missing? I'm guessing it is something simple but i spend several hours to get this running without any luck...
Try running it this way. You should be able to see any output or error messages. I typically add to the path first rather than using & or start-process.
invoke-command mycomputer {
$env:path += ';C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\CommandUpdate';
dcu-cli /applyUpdates -autoSuspendBitLocker=enable -outputLog=C:\Dell_Update.log }
Using start-process inside invoke-command seems pretty challenging. I can't even see the output of findstr unless I save it to a file. And if I didn't wait the output would be truncated. By default start-process runs in the background and in another window. There's a -nonewwindow option too but it doesn't help with invoke-command.
invoke-command localhost { # elevated
start-process 'findstr' '/i word c:\users\joe\file1' -wait -RedirectStandardOutput c:\users\joe\out }
#js2010, thanks for your additional help. Unfortunately this didn't helped either.
So i did some more debugging and it turns out it was a bug in the dcu-cli version running on my test machine, DOH...!!
On the test machine version 3.1.1 was running and on another machine version 4.0 was running and that worked fine via remote Powershell. So i looked for the release notes, which i found here: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/000177325/dell-command-update
And as you can see in version 3.1.3 there was this fix:
A problem was solved where dcu-cli.exe was not executed in an external interactive session of PowerShell.
I am updating TortoiseGit repository using the following code (which works) in command line file (MyTestRepo.cmd):
cd c:\MyTortoiseGitRepo
git.exe pull --progress -v --no-rebase "origin"
In PowerShell I am calling this file using the following code:
$TestPull = Start-Job { Invoke-Item C:\MyTests\MyTestRepo.cmd }
Wait-Job $TestPull
Receive-Job $TestPull
The above code does work but it is not waiting long enough for the CMD file to finish running and exit cmd.exe to exit before moving on to the next line of code.
What better way to you have to wait for the cmd.exe process to finish before moving on?
Invoke-Item doesn't support waiting. You can use the call operator &. Ex:
$TestPull = Start-Job { & "C:\MyTests\MyTestRepo.cmd" }
Or Start-Process -Wait:
$TestPull = Start-Job { Start-Process -FilePath "C:\MyTests\MyTestRepo.cmd" -Wait }
Start-Process will show the cmd-window when the script is excecuted by a user. This can be suppressed by adding -NoNewWindow`.
I'm trying to find a way to get PowerShell not to spawn a command window when running an executable using Start-Process.
If I call the executable directly within the script (e.g. .\program.exe) then the program runs (with its arguments) and the output is returned to the PowerShell window.
If I use Start-Process the program spawns a command window where the program runs and returns it's output.
If I try and use the -NoNewWindow switch of Start-Process the script then errors out saying it can't find the exe file.
I would prefer to use Start-Process to have access to the -Wait switch, as the programs and configurations the script makes can take some time individually to finish, and I don't want later commands starting up.
This code runs the executable in a separate command window:
Start-Process DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe -ArgumentList "download --autoDownloadOn --autoDownloadStartTime $StartTime --autoDownloadEndTime $EndTime" -Wait
This code runs the exe within the PowerShell console:
.\DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe download --autoDownloadOn --autoDownloadStartTime $StartTime --autoDownloadEndTime $EndTime
If I add the -NoNewWindow to the Start-Process code
Start-Process DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe -ArgumentList "download --autoDownloadOn --autoDownloadStartTime $StartTime --autoDownloadEndTime $EndTime" -Wait -NoNewWindow
I get the following error:
Start-Process : This command cannot be executed due to the error: The system
cannot find the file specifie
At C:\Temp\SOLUS3Installv1.3.ps1:398 char:22
+ Start-Process <<<< DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe -ArgumentList "download --autoDownloadStartTime $StartTime --autoDownloadEndTime $EndTime" -Wait -NoNewWindow
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [Start-Process], InvalidOperationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidOperationException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.StartProcessCommand
You should prefix the executable name with the current directory when you use the -NoNewWindow switch:
Start-Process .\DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe -ArgumentList "download --autoDownloadOn --autoDownloadStartTime $StartTime --autoDownloadEndTime $EndTime" -Wait -NoNewWindow
Background information:
The first thing Start-Process tries to do is to resolve the value of the -FilePath parameter by PowerShell rules. If it succeeds, it replaces the value value passed with the full path to the command. If not, it leaves the value untouched.
In the Windows API there are two ways to start a new process: CreateProcess and ShellExecute. ShellExecute is the default, but if you use a cmdlet parameter that requires CreateProcess (for example, -NoNewWindow), then CreateProcess will be used. The difference between them, which matters for this question, is that when looking for a command to execute, CreateProcess uses the current process' working directory, while ShellExecute uses the specified working directory (which Start-Process by default passes based on the current filesystem-provider location, unless explicitly specified via -WorkingDirectory).
PS Test:\> 1..3 |
>> ForEach-Object {
>> New-Item -Path $_ -ItemType Directory | Out-Null
>> Add-Type -TypeDefinition #"
>> static class Test {
>> static void Main(){
>> System.Console.WriteLine($_);
>> System.Console.ReadKey(true);
>> }
>> }
>> "# -OutputAssembly $_\Test.exe
>> }
PS Test:\> [IO.Directory]::SetCurrentDirectory((Convert-Path 2))
PS Test:\> Set-Location 1
PS Test:\1> Start-Process -FilePath Test -WorkingDirectory ..\3 -Wait # Use ShellExecute. Print 3 in new windows.
PS Test:\1> Start-Process -FilePath .\Test -WorkingDirectory ..\3 -Wait # Use ShellExecute. Print 1 in new windows.
PS Test:\1> Start-Process -FilePath Test -WorkingDirectory ..\3 -Wait -NoNewWindow # Use CreateProcess.
2
PS Test:\1> Start-Process -FilePath .\Test -WorkingDirectory ..\3 -Wait -NoNewWindow # Use CreateProcess.
1
PowerShell does not update the current process' working directory when you change the current location for the FileSystem provider, so the directories can differ.
When you type:
Start-Process DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe -Wait -NoNewWindow
Start-Process cannot resolve DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe by PowerShell rules, since it does not look in the current FileSystem location by default. And it uses CreateProcess, since you specify -NoNewWindow switch. So, it ends up looking for DeploymentServer.UI.CommandLine.exe in the current process' working directory, which does not contains this file and thus causes an error.