I am attempting to use a shortcut to a powershell script, which has to be run elevated, and has some arguments which can be somewhat long. And the location of the script itself may be in a rather buried folder since Architects really like to have massive folder structures. The issue is I am running out of room. And Microsoft using 57 characters for C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe is not helping.
I also can't use the Start in: to provide the path to the script. My guess is I am just hosed by Microsoft's limitations in shortcuts, but I wonder if someone knows some secret sauce for doing something like, maybe forcing the shortcut to just use powershell.exe rather than the full path?
Or is my only option to get as terse as I possible can with my arguments?
Related
I've added an option to copy a proper UNC path to the context menu of all directories via PowerShell.
Edit:
I didn't mention that I'm actually using two different keys: One to copy the UNC of the current directory, and one to copy it from a different directory. I didn't think it would make a difference, but it does.
End Edit
Currently, the key value is as follows:
powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -Command . <path I have to censor>\Save-To-Clipboard.ps1 \"%L%\"
Expected behaviour:
The PowerShell script is run quietly.
Actual behaviour:
A PowerShell Window pops up and closes itself.
The same thing happens with cmd.
I've tried using a VBS wrapper as well, but it needs the current path as an argument, which I can't figure out how to do. Simply putting it after the filename as you would in the command line results in the error:
This file does not have an app associated with it for performing this
action. Please install an app or, if one is already installed, create
an association in the Default Apps settings page.
Key value here:
<path I have to censor>\ClunkyWrapper.vbs \"%L%\"
Admittedly, this is my first time running a command from a registry key, and I can't seem to find any resources about this topic. (I might just not know what exactly to google for.) So I would be thankful for more general information on how to run commands from registry keys as well.
Okay, I found a way.
First of all, apparently whether you need to use %L% or %V% depends on the key. I can't tell you why, unfortunately.
That solves the error message of the VBA script, but it still wouldn't run like this.
So I then used wscript.exe, and it finally worked.
wscript.exe <secret path>\ClunkyWrapper.vbs "%V%"
I'm not a native English speaker as such pardon some discrepancy in my question. I'm looking at a way to Automate option selection in Programs/Scripts running via PowerShell.
For example:
Start-Process -FilePath "velociraptor.exe" -ArgumentList "config generate -i"
In the above snipper PowerShell will run Velociraptor and initiate the configuration wizard from a Ps1 file. The Wizard has few options. After running it will generate some Yaml files.
As such what would be the way to have PowerShell Script automate the option selection process? I know what the option should be. I looked around but I don't know proper terms to find what I need. Nor am I sure this can be done with PowerShell.
The end goal is to have the Ps1 download Exe, run the config command and continue with choosing the selection based on predefined choices. So far I gotten download and lunching of the velociraptor.exe working. But not sure how to skip the window in screenshot and have PowerShell script do it instead.
I couldn't find a CLI reference for velociraptor at https://www.velocidex.com/, but, generally speaking, your best bet is to find a non-interactive way to provide the information of interest, via dedicated _parameters_ (possibly pointing to an input file).
Absent that, you can use the following technique to provide successive responses to an external program's interactive prompts, assuming that the program reads the responses from stdin (the standard input stream):
$responses = 'windows', 'foo', 'bar' # List all responses here
$responses | velociraptor.exe config generate -i
How can I lock my Perl script, list I have to do
Prevent Others from read or write Perl Script.
They should have only Permission to Executing the Perl script.
This depends on your operating system, which you haven't specified.
Typically, this is not possible.
On a UNIX based system (such as Linux or Mac OS) there are three permissions that can be given to users, groups and everyone: Read, Write, and Execute.
You can remove Write permission easily enough, but Read permission is required to allow the script to be executed.
(I assume you would experience a similar problem on Windows).
The only work around I can think of would be to rewrite the script as a webservice. Then the HTTP server would need to be able to read it, but the users themselves would not.
If the system at hand is Linux/Unix and you have administrative access then you can use sudo.
With the following line in /etc/sudoers, anyone would be able to run, as author1, any executable file in the public_bin folder:
ALL ALL = (author1) /home/author1/public_bin/*
However, take a look at man sudoers to understand implications wrt. environment and command line arguments.
755 is the *nix permission you'll need. This will give the owner full access and other read and execute.
As other has said, there is no way to make your code unreadable. However,can you obfuscate you code so only a reasonably good programmer could decode it. There are online tools, if you search "perl obfuscate" on bing you'll get some good results; these tools will mean no module is required. Or my personal favorite is the module Acme::Bleach.
When I call the following code:
Start-Process Firefox
Then the PowerShell opens the browser. I can do that with several other programs and it works. My question is: How does the PowerShell know which program to open if I type Firefox? I mean, Im not using a concrete Path or something ...
I though it has something to do with the environment variables ... But I cannot find any variable there which is called Firefox ... How can he know?
I traced two halves of it, but I can't make them meet in the middle.
Process Monitor shows it checks the PATHs, and eventually checks HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\firefox.exe so that's my answer to how it finds the install location, and then runs it.
That registry key is for Application Registration which says:
When the ShellExecuteEx function is called with the name of an executable file in its lpFile parameter, there are several places where the function looks for the file. We recommend registering your application in the App Paths registry subkey.
The file is sought in the following locations:
The current working directory.
The Windows directory only (no subdirectories are searched).
The Windows\System32 directory.
Directories listed in the PATH environment variable.
Recommended: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths
That implies PowerShell calls the Windows ShellExecuteEx function, which finds FireFox as a registered application, or it tries the same kind of searching itself internally.
Going the other way to try and confirm that, the Start-Process cmdlet has a parameter set called UseShellExecute. The 'Notes' of that help says:
This cmdlet is implemented by using the Start method of the System.Diagnostics.Process class. For more information about this method, see Process.Start Method
Trying to trace through the source code on GitHub:
Here is the PowerShell source code for Start-Process.
Here, at this line it tries to look up the $FilePath parameter with CommandDiscovery.LookupCommandInfo.
Here it checks else if (ParameterSetName.Equals("UseShellExecute"))
Then Here is the .Start() function which either starts it with ShellExecute or Process.Start()
OK, not sure if ShellExecute and ShellExecuteEx behave the same, but it could be PS calling Windows, which is doing the search for "FireFox".
That CommandSearcher.LookupCommandInfo comes in here and follows to TryNormalSearch() which is implemented here and immediately starts a CommandSearcher which has a state machine for the things it will search
SearchState.SearchingAliases
Functions
CmdLets
SearchingBuiltinScripts
StartSearchingForExternalCommands
PowerShellPathResolution
QualifiedFileSystemPath
and there I get lost. I can't follow it any further right now.
Either it shortcuts straight to Windows doing the lookup
Or the PowerShell CommandSearcher does the same search somehow
Or the PowerShell CommandSearcher in some way runs out of searching, and the whole thing falls back to asking Windows search.
The fact that Process Monitor only logs one query in each PATH folder for "firefox.*" and then goes to the registry key suggests it's not doing this one, or I'd expect many more lookups.
The fact that it logs one query for "get-firefox.*" in each PATH folder suggests it is PowerShell's command searcher doing the lookup and not Windows.
Hmm.
Using Process Monitor I was able to trace the PowerShell.
It first searches the $env:path variable, then the $profile variable.
In my case firefox wasn't found and then it searches through a whole lot in the Registry and somehow finds it.
It might have something to do with how firefox is installed on the system.
I'm using the console version of VIM (not gvim) in Windows, and I have a question about using PowerShell as the shell.
I have set my shell to be powershell and I can run commands, but there's one thing I don't know. I have a bunch of things going on in my PowerShell profile, and I was wondering if it's possible to somehow pass something to PowerShell using VIM, so that in the profile I can check and decide what to do.
I know there's an option -NoProfile we can pass to powershell.exe, but my problem is that I don't want to ignore my whole profile, because I need some parts, such as aliases etc.
Thanks,