I've been working on trying to run a Powershell script on the network using PSExec, but every time I run it, I get this message:
PsExec v2.2 - Execute processes remotely
Copyright (C) 2001-2016 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
Couldn't access [COMPUTER]:
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
C:\PSTools> psexec \\[COMPUTER] /s cmd /c %SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\
v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -file c:\apps\test.ps1
PsExec v2.2 - Execute processes remotely
Copyright (C) 2001-2016 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
The argument 'c:\apps\test.ps1' to the -File parameter does not exist. Provide
the path to an existing '.ps1' file as an argument to the -File parameter.
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Try the new cross-platform PowerShell https://aka.ms/pscore6
cmd exited on [COMPUTER] with error code -196608.
The goal of the script is to traverse domain-connected laptops and save a specific list of directories to a file on my computer. That script is as follows:
powershell.exe -command "& {& get-childitem 'c:\users\*\appdata\local\google\chrome\user*data\default\extensions\*'}" > \\[MY_COMPUTER]\C$\users\[USERNAME]\desktop\Chrome_Extensions.txt
I am calling this script with this command:
psexec \\[COMPUTER] /s cmd /c %SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\
v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -file c:\apps\test.ps1
When I run the script without psexec \\[COMPUTER] /s , it runs fine and saves the correct information about the computer I'm running it on, then sends the information to my computer's desktop. But running it with the aforementioned line causes the error above, and I can't target machines on the network. So, what about the PSExec command causes this to error out, as it doesn't seem like there's really a lot to it? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, and assuming that PSExec should run the same as PowerShell, which very well might not be the case. I guess I'm just a little lost on how to use it, and any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
With help from #Briantist, I've been able to run the command Enable-PSRemoting on the target computer, then run the script with invoke-command -computername [COMPUTER] -filepath c:\apps\test.ps1
Using PSExec was just too messy, so I'm glad this was able to work another way. Now to figure out how to enable remoting on all computers on the domain without connecting to all of them individually and doing it manually...
Related
I am trying to create an executable (.exe) at windows that will perform some actions at first, and then open an interactive shell. In my case the interactive shell I want to be a wsl, but the problem is shown with every type of shells created.
For example:
Supposing that we have the file
test.ps1
Write-Host "Hello from my test program"
Invoke-Expression "powershell"
If I run it with the command: ./test.ps1, the outcome will be to print the message and start a new powershell instance.
If i run the command: Invoke-ps2exe .\test.ps1 test.exe, and then run the test.exe, the outcome will be:
Hello from my test program
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Try the new cross-platform PowerShell https://aka.ms/pscore6
but I cannot write anything at the window.
Can anyone explain me why this is happening, and how I could overcome this?
Modify your test.ps1 file as follows:
Write-Host "Hello from my test program"
Start-Process -Wait -NoNewWindow powershell.exe
This change ensures that PowerShell's usual interactive host, ConsoleHost, in the newly launched PowerShell session launched from your script doesn't run on top of the simplified host that is built into the .exe files that ps2exe generates, which appears to cause your problems.
Currently, I'm using this,
cd Images powershell.exe & Import-Module .\Resize-Image.psm1 & Resize-Image ....
What this does in PS, is that it will import the module and I'm able to use it's function to rescale my pictures and output it, it works pretty well in PS but i'm intending to use cmd prompt to call this as my other lines of codes are in cmd prompt.
When i use this in cmd, it just displays
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
and is waiting for a new command even though the above code is in a .bat file.
The code presented starts PowerShell, but has no command for it. After the AMPERSAND, the next command is Import-Module which is unknown to cmd.exe.
PowerShell commands can be separated by a SEMICOLON character.
cd Images
powershell.exe -NoLogo -NoProfile -Command ^
"Import-Module .\Resize-Image.psm1; Resize-Image ...."
If you could run in PowerShell:
Set-Location './Images' # probably should have a fully-qualified path
Import-Module './Resize-image.psm1'
Resize-Image ...
We would like to execute powershell scripts which are located at windows share drive eg: winvmx01\folder1\folder2\script.ps1 from linux machine.
We installed powershell in linux machine and running Invoke-Command -Computername winvmx01 -ScriptBlock { Get-ChildItem "C:\Program Files" }
but it cant able to find commands of powershell and posting an error /bin/bash: line 69: Invoke-Command: command not found.
when we tried to check version it is showing up fine
pwsh
PowerShell v6.0.4
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
https://aka.ms/pscore6-docs
Type 'help' to get help.`
can someone please suggest how we can proceed. if not powershell is there any other client that we can use to execute a script in windows shared machine.
Thanks!
I am learning how to interact with PowerShell and PsTools, and I have a problem with psexec.
I got a ps1 script named test.ps1 and inside it I have Get-Service which gives me the all services in my computer. Now I am going into PowerShell and go to c:\pstools. Then I type
psexec.exe C:\test\test.ps1
and it fails and returns me this error:
%1 is not a valid Win32 application
What could be the problem?
PsExec launches an executable. You need to specify the executable for PowerShell and associated arguments:
psexec.exe -accepteula -nobanner -s -h -d powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -NoLogo -File "C:\test\test.ps1"
The immediate answer to your question is:
psexec requires a (binary) executable as its first argument and cannot execute scripts directly.
Therefore, you must pass the Windows PowerShell executable name to psexec and in turn pass the desired script to the latter as an argument, via the -File parameter:
psexec powershell -File C:\test\test.ps1
That said, this particular use of psexec is pointless, as it would execute the script locally, as the current user, in which case use of psexec is a needless complication:
If you already know that, and the psexec command at hand is just a simplified example, never mind.
Otherwise, read on below.
The ps in psexec and PsTools has nothing to with PowerShell; PsTools is a collection of CLIs for managing Windows machines remotely, including processes, a common abbreviation of which is "ps", inspired by the standard ps Unix utility, which in turn inspired the initial tool in the collection, pslist; the primary purpose of psexec is to invoke arbitrary command lines on remote machines[1]
.
To invoke a PowerShell script locally:
From inside PowerShell itself, simply invoke the file path directly:
PS> c:\test\test.ps1
PS> & "c:\test\test.ps1", if the file path is / must be quoted or is provided via a variable or expression.
From outside of PowerShell, such as cmd.exe ("Command Prompt") or bash, you must invoke the PowerShell executable explicitly and pass it the script file path via the -File parameter:
Windows PowerShell: C:\> powershell -file c:\test\test.ps1
PowerShell Core: C:\> pwsh -file c:\test\test.ps1
In other words: the PowerShell's executable name is
powershell.exe for Windows PowerShell,
vs. pwsh for the cross-platform PowerShell Core edition (with extension .exe on Windows).
If you do need remote execution:
Pass \\-prefixed machine name(s) or IP address(es) to psexec; e.g., the following command executes the hostname utility on machine somemachine:
psexec \\somemachine hostname
There is no benefit to using psexec without targeting a different machine.[1]
However, psexec is normally not needed, because PowerShell has built-in support for remoting (i.e., the ability to execute commands on other machines; remoting requires setup, however - run Get-Help about_Remote_FAQ for more information); e.g., the equivalent of the above command is:
Invoke-Command -ComputerName somemachine { hostname }
[1] As TheIncorrigible1 points out, psexec can also be used for local execution as the system account (NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM, the account that represents the computer as a whole) with the -s option.
Additionally, you can also run locally as another user, using the -u parameter - which, however, the standard runas utility can do as well (the latter doesn't offer passing the target user's password as a parameter for security reasons, but does offer to securely save a password for later reuse).
Run psexec -h for help.
I have made a plugin for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager that executes a powershell script on a host machine through a powershell script called by the c# code of the plugin. (Shellception :P)
Since I allways got an error I decided to test it manually in SCVMM by right clicking on the host and entering powershell.exe or powershellfor executable and export-v -name [name] -path [path] -force - copystate -wait.
Now it tells me that there is no such file.
Strangely it works with cmd(.exe) and echo test.
Shouldn't powershell be installed on Windows Server 2012?
Also, if I remotecontroll the host, it works just fine in the console.
What am I missing?
I figured out that you need to provide the full path when using powershell.exe as executable. The issue is that not all hosts have the system variable PATH that includes the path to the powershell.exe executable.
You can run powershell.exe by providing the full path:
%WINDIR%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\PowerShell.exe
Or you can run cmd.exe as executable and then to run powershell.exe from this cmd:
executable: cmd.exe
parameters: /c powershell.exe echo 1; return 0;