Removal of Office - powershell

Question

I'm currently trying to run a batch file as a startup script to detect and remove whatever version of office a user has installed and then to install Office 365. I have the install working however, when I attempted to uninstall Office 2013 I received the following error:
Input Error: Can not find script file "C:\Windows\OffScrub_O15msi.vbs"
The Offscrub file is in the same location as the script, is someone able to tell me why it's looking in C:\Windows for it?
Update
Please find my current script which now works for Office 2013, I previously added the line Remove2016Installs $true when using -Command to remove Office 2016, this worked. Since using -File to work around my initial problem I've been unable to get the script to remove Office 2016 and would like some advice on how to do this, I've read that whatever command is after -File needs to be the last which I believe might be why it's failing.
My full script is below:
start "----NOTICE----" cmd.exe /t:ec /Q /k "echo OFFICE 365 IS BEING INSTALLED. THIS WINDOW WILL CLOSE WHEN COMPLETE&&prompt $h"
#echo off
pushd "%~dp0"
powershell.exe -executionpolicy bypass -NoExit -File "Remove-PreviousOfficeInstalls.ps1"
popd
reg Query "HKLM\Hardware\Description\System\CentralProcessor\0" | find /i "x86" > NUL && set OS=32BIT || set OS=64BIT
if %OS%==32BIT "\\domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\{Policy Number}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\setup.exe" /configure "\\domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\{Policy Number}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\configuration-Office365-x86.xml"
if %OS%==64BIT "\\domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\{Policy Number}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\setup.exe" /configure "\\domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\{Policy Number}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\configuration-Office365-x64.xml"
taskkill /IM cmd.exe /FI "WINDOWTITLE EQ ----NOTICE----"
taskkill /IM cmd.exe /FI "WINDOWTITLE EQ Administrator: ----NOTICE----"
echo %date% %time% Setup ended with error code %errorlevel%. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt
Update Finished
There's a line that calls the Powershell script Remove-PreviousOfficeInstalls, this is a file from GitHub that is very popular for the removal of whichever Office version you have installed.
I can run this command if say I copy these files to the desktop and amend the locations in the scripts, I'm not sure what this reference to C:\Windows is though when run from \domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies{Policy Number}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\?

Answer 1

If you run a default instances of PowerShell it always starts in a certain directory. It depends on how and who it is started by. For instance an administrative PowerShell usually starts in C:\Windows\System32. If you use any paths that are not absolute they're applied relative to this directory.
To work around this you need to change the directory it's using. For instance by using cd to change the directory. My guess would be that your script Remove-PreviousOfficeInstalls.ps1 contains a relative call to the VBS.
An easy fix would be to run a script block instead of a single command and just cd to \\domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\'{Policy Number}'\Machine\Scripts\Startup\ prior to running the ps1.
The PowerShell help you can view by following [this] link or running powershell -h has the following information in regards to using the -Command switch.
...
Script blocks must be enclosed in braces ({}). You can specify a script block only when running PowerShell.exe in PowerShell. If you want to use a script block when running from another shell you must use the format:
"& {}"
...
The other important parameter for your use case is -File.
Runs the specified script in the local scope ("dot-sourced"), so that the functions and variables that the script creates are available in the current session. Enter the script file path and any parameters.
...
Your batch contains the following line:
powershell.exe -executionpolicy bypass -Command "\\domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\'{Policy Number}'\Machine\Scripts\Startup\Remove-PreviousOfficeInstalls.ps1 -Remove2016Installs $true"
What you do is run a single command to invoke a script with a parameter. The problems is that said script checks its locations based on certain function and with your invocation that location is wrongly detected.
There are multiple ways to fix this. One would be to change the directory before invoking the script. To do this you'd need to use a script block as the parameter for -Command. An example for this would be:
powershell.exe -Command "& {Write-Output 'Hello'; Write-Output 'World';}"
As you can see there are two independent Write-Output commands being run. You'd change this to a cd \\domain\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\'{Policy Number}'\Machine\Scripts\Startup\ and the invocation of your script. As a bonus you wouldn't need to put the whole path in front of the script anymore.
The other option would be to run powershell -File with your current invocation of the script. That should also mean that the script is read from the file and the corresponding parameters are populated accordingly.
If neither of these options work you will have to check what $PSScriptRoot is being populated with and/or what the return of (Get-Item -Path ".\").FullName is as those are the two commands used to determine the location of the script that's being executed. To do this you could use a script block.

Answer 2

thanks for your help regarding this. My resolution was to use the following bat command:
`start "----NOTICE----" cmd.exe /t:ec /Q /k "echo OFFICE 365 IS BEING INSTALLED. THIS WINDOW WILL CLOSE WHEN COMPLETE&&prompt $h"`
#echo off
pushd "%~dp0"
powershell.exe -executionpolicy bypass -File Remove-PreviousOfficeInstalls.ps1 -Remove2016Installs
popd
reg Query "HKLM\Hardware\Description\System\CentralProcessor\0" | find /i "x86" > NUL && set OS=32BIT || set OS=64BIT
if %OS%==32BIT "\\Server\Folder\Folder\setup.exe" /configure "\\Server\Folder\Folder\configuration-Office365-x86.xml"
if %OS%==64BIT "\\Server\Folder\Folder\setup.exe" /configure "\\Server\Folder\Folder\configuration-Office365-x64.xml"
taskkill /IM cmd.exe /FI "WINDOWTITLE EQ ----NOTICE----"
taskkill /IM cmd.exe /FI "WINDOWTITLE EQ Administrator: ----NOTICE----"
echo %date% %time% Setup ended with error code %errorlevel%. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt
I had to amend the Remove-PreviousOfficeInstalls powershell script to include the switch command:
[Parameter(ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]
[switch]$Remove2016Installs = $false,
This then did exactly what I was after, it detected the current version of Office, removed it and installed the correct bit version of Office 365 for that PC\Laptop.
Thanks for all your help