Starting webDriver endpoint in current users's desktop from linux through powershell - windows

Question

I have a test cluster that contains a linux machine, an iMac and a windows 7 PC.
The linux machine hosts junit tests that I wrote and the other two machine serve as endpoints for browser automation tests using webDriver.
The script that executes the junit tests loops through different browsers and executes the junit tests against each browser using selenium webDriver. So far, the browsers include iphone, ipad, safari (mac), firefox (mac), chrome (mac), IE10 (win7), firefox (win7), chrome (win7).
While developing this test cluster, I encountered random crashes of webDriver on each of the two endpoints and found it necessary to write a kill/restart of the webDriver jar file. Now, this was a relatively simple matter on the iMac, but on the Windows 7 PC this is proving to be extremely difficult.
The linux machine has a script that checks to see that the webDriver endpoint is available by checking http://windows.Host:4444/wd/hub/status and if it isn't, it shells into powershell on the Windows 7 PC (I have freesshd setup to point to powershell instead of cmd.exe) and runs these commands:
Stop-Process -name java
Start-Process -FilePath C:\webDriver.bat
webDriver.bat contains:
java -jar C:\selenium-server.standalone-2.33.0.jar
Here is the problem I am having:
when powershell restarts webDriver using the above comands, the wedDriver endpoint is reachable but not visible. My tests proceed but fail because the browser is not running in the current desktop but instead some virtual one or another users Desktop. When I run webDriver.bat manually, webDriver runs in a cmd.exe window and the tests execute against all win7 browsers fine, providing webDriver doesn't crash.
Here is my question:
How do I make webDriver execute in such a way that my tests proceed and run correctly, rather than in the background/another user's desktop? These tests are part of Build Verification and need to be run on demand, so having someone manually run webDriver.bat is not an option.
I previously tried to have webDriver's jar running as a service and using samba to restart that service as needed, but ran into the same problem. Powershell seemed to be a better alternative with better control and the ability to verify that the jar file is running, but I don't know if I am heading in the wrong direction here.
I don't relish having to learn powershell to accomplish something that was relatively easy on another OS, but understand that this may be my only option. I also know that the commands I'm using do not constitute a good script and welcome suggestions on how to better achieve my goal here.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Sounds like you just need to pass the host option like so:
java -jar selenium-server-standalone-2.37.0.jar -host 0.0.0.0
Powershell might have permission restrictions on binding to all ports that can be overcome by setting the correct policy. See my blog post here for ideas.
You question is pretty long winded...can you shorten it?