Problem
You want to invoke a PowerShell script from a batch file, a logon script, scheduled task, or any other nonPowerShell application.
Solution
Launch PowerShell.exe in the following way:
PowerShell "& 'full path to script' arguments"
For example,
PowerShell "& 'c:\shared scripts\GetReport.ps1' Hello World"
Discussion
Supplying a single string argument to PowerShell.exe invokes PowerShell, runs the command as though you had typed it in the interactive shell, and then exits. Since the path to a script often contains spaces, you invoke the script by placing its name between single quotes, and after the & character. If the script name does not contain spaces, you can omit the single quotes and & character. This technique lets you invoke a PowerShell script as the target of a logon script, advanced file association, scheduled task and more.
If you are the author of the program that needs to run PowerShell scripts or commands, PowerShell lets you call these scripts and commands much more easily than calling its commandline interface.
If the command becomes much more complex than a simple script call, special characters in the application calling PowerShell (such as cmd.exe) might interfere with the command you want to send to PowerShell. For this situation, PowerShell supports an EncodedCommand parameter: a Base64 encoded representation of the Unicode string. erShell commands to a Base64 encoded form.
Example 14. Converting PowerShell commands into a Base64 encoded form
$commands = '1..10 | % { "PowerShell Rocks" }' $bytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetBytes($commands) $encodedString = [Convert]::ToBase64String($bytes)
Once you have the encoded string, you can use it as the value of the EncodedCommand parameter, as shown in Example 15.
Example 15. Launching PowerShell with an encoded command from cmd.exe
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000] Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Lee>PowerShell EncodedCommand MQAuAC4AMQAwACAAfAAgACUAIAB7ACAAIgBQAG8A↵ dwBlAHIAUwBoAGUAbABsACAAUgBvAGMAawBzACIAIAB9AA== PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks PowerShell Rocks
