I have a windows powershell script that will be available on a server to my users. I don't want them to have to go out and find the PS script, right click and click "run with powershell" or do an "open with". The Windows (Win 7 at least) default program is notepad.
I want to make a batch file to do this. I've tried:
start "c:\myfile.ps1" powershell.exe
and a few other variations, but all I've been able to do is either start powershell, or open my file in its default program, notepad.
Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!
Bonus question: If I run my batch file as administrator will it also run my PS script as administrator?
Simply use the -file argument for PowerShell.exe in your batch file:
PowerShell.exe -file c:\MyFile.ps1
Additionally, some users may have their Execution Policy set to something that would restrict scripts from being executed, so you may want to do something like:
PowerShell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -file c:\MyFile.ps1
If you would like to use start to launch it you can do so as Ansgar Wiechers noted by running:
start "" PowerShell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -file c:\MyFile.ps1
Some notes regarding using start: By default it will launch PowerShell in a separate window, and continue to execute the rest of the batch file without waiting for the PowerShell window to close. If that is undesirable you have two options. You can specify /wait which will wait for the PowerShell window to close before continuing the batch file, or you can use the /B option will will not open a new window, and will execute PowerShell in the current console window.
And finally, yes if your batch file is run under the Administrator context, PowerShell will be as well.
Related
There are plenty of questions here which asks how to elevate priviliges from powershell, and almost all of them recommend this command:
Start-Process -Verb RunAs powershell.exe .....
(or pwsh.exe for Powershell Core)
And this works, it opens up a new Powershell window with elevated privileges, after having gone through a UAC block to verify access.
However, while I'm using Powershell, I'm doing it inside Windows Terminal, the new terminal application for Windows 10, and I would like to open a new instance of Windows Terminal with elevated privileges, not just a Powershell window.
So I tried these commands:
Start-Process -Verb RunAs wt
Start-Process -Verb RunAs wt.exe
Start-Process -Verb RunAs (Get-Command wt)
Start-Process -Verb RunAs "C:\Users\lasse\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\wt.exe"
They all fail with:
Start-Process: This command cannot be run due to the error: The file cannot be accessed by the system..
I'm assuming this has something to do with where the executable is located, within my profile, but if I right-click the Windows Terminal icon I have on my task bar and choose to run it as administrator, it opens up just fine. This is what I want to duplicate.
So is there a way for me to modify either the commands I tried above, or change some access setting that would make this work?
For my specific instance, I simply want to make it simpler to pop open an admin terminal, I don't need a way to elevate arbitrary commands, then I will happily use the commands I have already shown here.
Currently you cannot open an elevated wt.exe session from the command line without workarounds. Workarounds include using gsudo, Using Task Scheduler (I tested this one and it works but you need to use the full path to wt.exe and you can skip the shortcut creation step) OR if you are ok with a keyboard shortcut, the simplest way; using a keyboard shortcut to run Windows Terminal as Admin from the taskbar.
For your use case:
For my specific instance, I simply want to make it simpler to pop open
an admin terminal, I don't need a way to elevate arbitrary commands,
then I will happily use the commands I have already shown here.
The simplest approach will work:
Pin Windows Terminal as the first item on the task bar. Then hit Win+Ctrl+Shift+1 to open it as admin.
If you really must launch Windows Terminal from the command line from within Windows Terminal then create a task in the Task Scheduler:
Give the task a name, check 'Run with highest privileges'.
Choose the 'Actions' tab, click 'New', select 'Start a program' as the action. Put the full path to wt.exe in the 'Program/script field'. Click OK. Click OK again.
Click 'Conditions' tab, uncheck "Start the task only if the computer is on AC power".
Click 'Settings' tab, make sure "Allow task to be run on demand" is checked and uncheck "Stop the task if running for longer than".
Finally in your shell (Powershell), launch an elevated Windows Terminal session by running the command: schtasks /run /TN "TASK_NAME" where TASK_NAME is the name you gave the task in step 1.
Try this:
powershell "Start-Process -Verb RunAs cmd.exe '/c start wt.exe'"
Also check out these links:
WT.exe command line arguments:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/command-line-arguments?tabs=windows
Article about adding Open Windows Terminal Command Prompt to the context menu in Explorer (includes Admin):
https://dkcool.tailnet.net/2020/07/add-open-windows-terminal-command-prompt-to-the-explorer-context-menu-in-windows-10/
Article about adding Open Admin Command Prompt to the context menu in Explorer:
https://dkcool.tailnet.net/2019/05/add-open-admin-command-prompt-to-the-explorer-context-menu-in-windows-10/
Not a direct answer but another option if you have PowerToys is to:
Alt + Space, type Terminal,
Select Run as Administrator (or Ctrl + Shift + Enter)
You can install PowerToys using WinGet
With recent releases, this issue appears to be fixed. It works now, doing exactly as you originally tried and failed (Start-Process -verb RunAs wt). I would recommend trying again now with the latest releases (at least Windows Terminal, and perhaps PowerShell as well).
No need for workarounds anymore!!
Windows Terminal has a feature to automatically run as administrator in the preview; no need for workarounds now.
Pin to the Taskbar and hold Ctrl + Shift while left clicking on the Windows Terminal icon.
In my particular case I also need Windows Terminal opened as administrator all the time. This is what I did, run "where wt" to display the path where Windows Terminal application exe is located, it should be C:\Users\YOURUSER\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\wt.exe.
I created a shortcut to that file and checked "Run as administrator" in the advanced properties, then I just pinned it to start and voila. You can delete your temporary shortcut after that if you want.
You can create a shortcut to always run Windows Terminal as administrator using this powershell script:
$WshShell = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut("$Home\Desktop\Windows Terminal.lnk")
$Shortcut.TargetPath = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe\wt.exe"
$Shortcut.Save()
$bytes = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("$Home\Desktop\Windows Terminal.lnk")
$bytes[0x15] = $bytes[0x15] -bor 0x20 #set byte 21 (0x15) bit 6 (0x20) ON
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes("$Home\Desktop\Windows Terminal.lnk", $bytes)
You can just paste it and run it from Windows Powershell ISE, it will create a Windows Terminal.lnk file on your desktop. Whenever you double click on that shortcut Windows terminal will run as an admnnistrator
I know this answer does not fully match your question but given that also other answers were oriented in this way I hope this won't disturb the discussion.
I always need to run PowerShell as Administrator and I only want to use Windows Terminal, which given it's restrictions cannot be configured to run always as Administrator.
I hated the need to use shortcuts and other hacks I found being suggested online, so I think I found a better solution but you have to pay the cost of a 1/2 seconds at startup.
Locate your user profile (A profile is a Windows PowerShell ISE script that runs automatically when you start a new session) using _ $PROFILE
Edit profile with any preferred editor _ code $PROFILE
Adde the following code to the profile file and save it
if (-NOT ([Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal] [Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole] "Administrator")) {
$host.ui.rawui.windowtitle="Bootstrapper"
Start-Process -Verb RunAs wt
} else {
$Processes = Get-Process | Where-Object {$_.mainWindowTitle -eq 'Bootstrapper' -and $_.name -eq 'WindowsTerminal'}
if($Processes.count -gt 0)
{
Stop-Process -Id $Processes[0].id
}
}
What the script do?
You can pin Windows Terminal icon to your application bar and when you click there WT will start as non elevated user, but the profile will understand if this is the case.
When you are not running as Administrator it will change the name of the window and start a new WT as administrator.
The new instance will also execute the profile file and if the instance is runinng as Administrator, it will look for the WT named Bootstrapper and kill it.
This proces takes between one and two seconds, I prefer this way other than right clicking on the icon.
It's likely you were just facing a Path issue. I know that the command examples you gave (e.g. Start-Process -verb RunAs wt) have worked for me for some time (as mentioned in #fialdrexs's answer).
Did you install Windows Terminal from a Github release or from the Store?
I currently have the following entry in my settings.json profiles list to add an elevated Windows Terminal to the drop down options:
{
// https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/632#issuecomment-663686412
"name": "Windows Terminal (elevated)",
"commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe -Command Start-Process -Verb RunAs \"shell:appsFolder\\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App\"",
"hidden": false,
"icon": "ms-appx:///Images/Square44x44Logo.targetsize-32.png"
}
The comment with the GitHub link should get you to where I originally found this information.
I find a away to workaround, just create a file bat with content
powershell Start-Process -Verb RunAs wt.exe
Save file yourfile.bat to folder you want.
Add path folder to System Environment.
Press WINDOW + R and type file bat name.
Currently this problem was fixed, but it ended up with a weird issue. Running wt.exe from Win+R, searching it on start menu, and starting itself from the terminal, show the same error message.
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000022). Click OK
to close the application.
However it works when executing wt via Command Prompt, PowerShell, and PowerShell Core.
So just a quick workaround answer, start PowerShell and run the command,
Start-Process -Verb RunAs wt.exe;
or the simpler
start -verb runas wt
I have
C:\folder\tail.exe
C:\logs\logfile.log
C:\script\shellscript.ps1
How do I run the C:\folder\tail.exe from within the C:\script\shellscript.ps1
I need to run "C:\folder\tailf.exe C:\logs\logfile.log" from within C:\script\shellscript.ps1 but without relying a seperate batch file, i need to call it directly.
Normally I do: cd C:\folder\ and then tailf.exe C:\logs\logfile.log
Inside C:\script\shellscript.ps1 I tried
start-process C:\fetchmail\tail.exe -argumentlist "C:\fetchmail\logs\fetchmail.log"
i can see a window flashing but dont know if it works, the window should stay open.
You can do what you normally do:
C:\folder\tail.exe c:\logs\logfile.log
Note that if the paths have spaces in them you have to do:
& "C:\fol der\tail.exe" "c:\log s\logfile.log"
To accomplish tail.exe running in a separate window and not having the window closed immediately, try:
cmd /k c:\folder\tail.exe c:\logs\test.log
To start tail.exe in the powershell window, try:
C:\folder\tail.exe c:\logs\logfile.log
Assuming tail.exe is Tail for Win32, this is a powershell equivalent of your command:
get-content c:\logs\logfile.log | select -last 10
In the Powershell Community Extensions there is a Get-FileTail cmdlet which is a more efficient native powershell tail equivalent.
I have a PowerShell script for building my project files, and I'd like to have capability to run it from my file manager's command line (and, possibly, make a shortcut to this script so I can start build from my desktop)
Any way to do this?
If you're on PowerShell 2.0 use:
PowerShell.exe -File c:\users\john\myscript.ps1
If you're on 1.0 use:
PowerShell -Command "& {c:\users\john\myscript.ps1}"
Depending on what you do/load in your profile script you may also want to specify -NoProfile. Of course, if your script requires something that is loaded in your profile then don't use this parameter. Otherwise, it can speed up execution of your script a bit.
invoke-command -computername -scriptblock{param()} -ArgumentList
I'm trying to run a batch file as admin. I found that I can use runas command which corresponds sudo command in Linux I think.
I tried
runas /noprofile /user:computername\adminuser "blah.bat start"
But it gives an error, saying :
Logon failure: user account restriction.. (msdos window doesn't allow me to copy anything) is there any way I can run this batch file as admin? Right click doesn't work because I can't include any parameters.
A workaround: You can create a shortcut to the batch file, add a parameter in the shortcut, then right-click to run the shortcut as admin.
Right-click the icon for the command-prompt and choose Run As Administrator. Then run you batch file from that window.
I believe that you can allow or disallow the RunAs command with the registry.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer
"HideRunAsVerb"= 1
See Disabling the RunAs Command
How do I run a PowerShell script?
I have a script named myscript.ps1
I have all the necessary frameworks installed
I set that execution policy thing
I have followed the instructions on this MSDN help page
and am trying to run it like so:
powershell.exe 'C:\my_path\yada_yada\run_import_script.ps1' (with or without --noexit)
which returns exactly nothing, except that the file name is output.
No error, no message, nothing. Oh, when I add -noexit, the same thing happens, but I remain within PowerShell and have to exit manually.
The .ps1 file is supposed to run a program and return the error level dependent on that program's output. But I'm quite sure I'm not even getting there yet.
What am I doing wrong?
Prerequisites:
You need to be able to run PowerShell as an administrator
You need to set your PowerShell execution policy to a permissive value or be able to bypass it
Steps:
Launch Windows PowerShell as an Administrator, and wait for the PS> prompt to appear
Navigate within PowerShell to the directory where the script lives:
PS> cd C:\my_path\yada_yada\ (enter)
Execute the script:
PS> .\run_import_script.ps1 (enter)
Or: you can run the PowerShell script from the Command Prompt (cmd.exe) like this:
powershell -noexit "& ""C:\my_path\yada_yada\run_import_script.ps1""" (enter)
according to Invoking a PowerShell script from cmd.exe (or Start | Run) by Kirk Munro.
Or you could even run your PowerShell script asynchronously from your C# application.
If you are on PowerShell 2.0, use PowerShell.exe's -File parameter to invoke a script from another environment, like cmd.exe. For example:
Powershell.exe -File C:\my_path\yada_yada\run_import_script.ps1
If you want to run a script without modifying the default script execution policy, you can use the bypass switch when launching Windows PowerShell.
powershell [-noexit] -executionpolicy bypass -File <Filename>
Type:
powershell -executionpolicy bypass -File .\Test.ps1
NOTE: Here Test.ps1 is the PowerShell script.
I've had the same problem, and I tried and tried... Finally I used:
powershell.exe -noexit "& 'c:\Data\ScheduledScripts\ShutdownVM.ps1'"
And put this line in a batch-file, and this works.
If you only have PowerShell 1.0, this seems to do the trick well enough:
powershell -command - < c:\mypath\myscript.ps1
It pipes the script file to the PowerShell command line.
Pretty easy. Right click the .ps1 file in Windows and in the shell menu click on Run with PowerShell.
Open PowerShell in administrator mode
Run: set-executionpolicy unrestricted
Open a regular PowerShell window and run your script.
I found this solution following the link that was given as part of the error message: About Execution Policies
Make sure to run set-ExecutionPolicy default once you're done, or you will be exposed to security risks.
Using cmd (BAT) file:
#echo off
color 1F
echo.
C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "PrepareEnvironment.ps1"
:EOF
echo Waiting seconds
timeout /t 10 /nobreak > NUL
If you need run as administrator:
Make a shortcut pointed to the command prompt (I named it
Administrative Command Prompt)
Open the shortcut's properties and go to the Compatibility tab
Under the Privilege Level section, make sure the checkbox next to "Run this program as an administrator" is checked
An easy way is to use PowerShell ISE, open script, run and invoke your script, function...
In case you want to run a PowerShell script with Windows Task Scheduler, please follow the steps below:
Create a task
Set Program/Script to Powershell.exe
Set Arguments to -File "C:\xxx.ps1"
It's from another answer, How do I execute a PowerShell script automatically using Windows task scheduler?.
If your script is named with the .ps1 extension and you're in a PowerShell window, you just run ./myscript.ps1 (assuming the file is in your working directory).
This is true for me anyway on Windows 10 with PowerShell version 5.1 anyway, and I don't think I've done anything to make it possible.
Give the path of the script, that is, path setting by cmd:
$> . c:\program file\prog.ps1
Run the entry point function of PowerShell:
For example, $> add or entry_func or main
You can run from cmd like this:
type "script_path" | powershell.exe -c -
Use the -File parameter in front of the filename. The quotes make PowerShell think it is a string of commands.
I've just found the method what Microsoft do when we right click on a ps1 script and click on "Run with PowerShell" :
"C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" "-Command" "if((Get-ExecutionPolicy ) -ne 'AllSigned') { Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process Bypass }; & 'C:\Users\USERNAME\Desktop\MYSCRIPT.ps1'"
With the appropriate execution policy, you should just be able to call the file directly and Windows will associate it with PowerShell
C:\my_path\yada_yada\run_import_script.ps1
That does not do so well with arguments. The real answer to your question is that you are missing the & to say "execute this"
powershell.exe '& C:\my_path\yada_yada\run_import_script.ps1'