Running a small WMI Powershell Script - powershell

I'm trying to have a few scripts that I can map to run from my keyboard for quickly changing the monitor/screen brightness. After some searching on the internet, I found this script which works when I enter it into Powershell.
$monitor=#(gwmi WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods -ns root/wmi)[0]
$monitor.WmiSetBrightness(50,0)
After I saved it as a .ps1 file and tried running it from the file, powershell tells me: The term "path of the file" is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function... and so on.
I'm not familiar with Powershell at all, can someone help with what I need to add in order for the script to run properly?

By default you can't run a PowerShell script that is in the current directory without putting .\ in front of the script name, or calling the full path of the script.
This is a security feature.
If you are in the directory that contains the script, run it by executing in a PowerShell window:
.\yourscript.ps1
Where yourscript is the name of your script.
See here for more information: https://ss64.com/ps/syntax-run.html
You may also see this error if your script has spaces in its name. If that is the case, enclose the path in quotes:
.\'your script.ps1'

Related

Execute Batch in Powershell (Win 10) does not affect Parent Shell

just for understanding this.
I want to open my Powershell in a certain folder. As I didn´t find out how, I tried to put a batch file with just "cd ....." in it in the default folder where PowerShell opens.
When I execute the batch, though, I end up where I started from.
It seems that the batch gets excuted in a subshell which doesn´t affect the Parentshell.
How can I execute the stuff in the batchfile in parentshell ?
Thanks in advance!
You cannot. Batch files are executed by cmd, not PowerShell, so there will always be a new process for them.
With a PowerShell script you can use dot-sourcing
. Script.ps1
To execute the script in your current scope, which is most similar to how batch files are executed by cmd by default.
If you want to open your Powershell in a certain folder, you can set that up in your Powershell profile. In Powershell, type $profile and that will give you the location of your profile file. Edit that file and use Set-Location:
Set-Location 'C:\Some\Place'
Powershell will execute whatever is in your profile script every time you open a new Powershell session.

How to run an executable through PowerShell without batch files or cmd?

I am currently using batch files to run a set of simulations. Each line in the batch file reads:
"filepath\program.exe" "filepath\simulation.file"
The quotation marks exist to bound any spaces that exist within the file paths. Without any spaces in the file paths, the quotation marks can be removed.
When I run the batch file through PowerShell, using the following command, it works fine:
.\batch.bat
The executable is run and the output is written to the host, as if I was running the same batch file in cmd.
However, I want to ditch the batch files and run the command directly through PowerShell. When I run the following, I get the program to execute, though it doesn't run properly and I don't get anything written to host. It also appears to hang until I use Ctrl+C to cancel.
& "filepath\program.exe" "filepath\simulation.file"
Could you please help me with the following?
Any resources discussing how PowerShell executes batch files.
How to run an executable through PowerShell without using cmd or a batch file and have it write to host.
Have you tried Start-Process?
Start-Process -FilePath "filepath\program.exe" -ArgumentList "filepath\simulation.file" -Wait
PS: The Parameter -Wait is optional.
Although I'm not quite sure why yet, I found out that this issue only occurred while working remotely. Whenever I was connected to the network locally the command ran just fine.
Since I plan to execute the command on PCs that are situated locally on the network, I'll leave it at this for now.
Thanks to everyone who commented!

Powershell does not create a folder when I run a script. What's wrong?

I'm trying to have powershell create a folder for me and it works fine when I type it into the console. However, when I run the same command as a script, no folder is created and no error messages are supplied.
This is the line of code I am using.
new-item - path c:\test\ -name testfolder -itemtype directory
edit: I am on Windows 7
This should be a comment, but I cannot comment. There is definitely nothing wrong with that line of code. It runs on my machine, either from the terminal window or as a script. Because the code works for you at the terminal window but not when executing as a script my first guess is that your system may be configured to disallow powershell scripts. This is the default setting, and it will prevent a script file from executing but will not prevent commands typed at the prompt from working. Open a powershell session and type get-executionpolicy. If it returns "restricted" then you have found the culprit. This setting can be changed by opening an elevated powershell session (run as admin) and typing set-executionpolicy -executionpolicy RemoteSigned. Of course you should read about what those settings mean before changing them to determine what is best for your situation. For example the remotesigned option means that scripts originating from your machine will execute without a trusted signature, but external scripts will require a signature.

Running Powershell script from SSIS with OnTap cmdlets throws error, but not when run from PS Cmd Line?

We are trying to run a Poweshell Script that uses the OnTap PS Modules, from SSIS, when we do, an error is issued:
Error: The term 'Connect-NaController' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
But when we run the same script from the Powershell Command Line, then the script runs just fine. So I think the scripts are fine.
So I'm wondering if the security context is different or we have to do something more explicitly in our call from SSIS?
When we call the script from SSIS we use: -ExecutionPolicy ByPass
Thanks!
In SSIS i had to set the FULL PATH of the script instead of ./scriptfile

Why won't this powershell script accept parameters?

myscript.ps1
Param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true,Position=1)]
[string]$computerName
)
echo "arg0: " $computerName
CMD.exe
C:\> myscript.ps1 -computerName hey
Output:
cmdlet myscript.ps1 at command pipeline position 1
Supply values for the following parameters:
computerName: ddd
arg0:
ddd
I'm simply trying to work with Powershell parameters in CMD, and I can't seem to get a script to take one. I see sites saying to precede the script with .\ but that doesn't help. I added the mandatory line to see if Powershell was reading a parameter or not, and it's clearly not. The parameter computerName is obviously the word "hey". The Param block is the very first thing in the script. Powershell appears to recognize a parameter computerName, but no matter how I enter the command, it never thinks I'm actually entering parameter.
What the heck's wrong with my syntax?
By default, Powershell will not run scripts that it just happens to find in your current directory. This is intended by Microsoft as a security feature, and I believe that it mimics behavior found in unix shells.
Powershell will run scripts that it finds in your search path. Your search path is stored in $env:path.
I suspect that you have a script named "myscript.ps1" in some other directory that is on your search path.
I have had this happen to me before. The symptom I saw was that the parameter list seemed different than what I had defined. Each script had a different parameter list, so the script bombed when I fed it a parameter list intended for the other script. My habit is to not rely on parameter position, so this problem was easy to find.
The addition of ".\" to the script ".\myscript.ps1" should force the shell to use the .ps1 file in your current directory. As a test, I would specify the full path to the file you are trying to execute (If there are spaces in the path, be sure to wrap the path in "quotes") or change it to some totally crazy name that won't be duplicated by some other file (like "crazyfishpants.ps1") and see if the shell still finds the file.
You can get into similar problems if you have a function ("Get-Foo") that is loaded out of a module or profile with the same name as a script file ("Get-Foo.ps1"). You may wind up running something other than what you intend.
Position values should be 0-based (0 for the first parameter). That said, I can't duplicate what you're seeing on either PowerShell 2.0 or 3.0.
Thank you all for your very informative responses. It looks like my question was slightly edited before I submitted it, in that the text leads you to believe that I was entering this command directly in Powershell.
I was actually running the command for the script in CMD, which totally explains why it was not passing parameters to the Powershell script. Whoever green-lighted my question probably changed C:\> to PS> thinking that I made a typo.
I assumed that if I could run the script straight from CMD, I could send parameters to it on CMD's command line, but apparently that's not the case. If I run the script in Powershell, it indeed works just fine, I'm now seeing.
My ultimate goal was to allow users to run the Powershell script from CMD. It's looking like I can make a batch file that accepts parameters, and then start powershell and send those parameters to the PS script. And so, in the batch file, I should do something like:
powershell -File C:\myscript.ps -computerName %1
This enigma was probably solved 100 times over on this site, and I apologize for the confusion. Thank you again, for your responses.