I am currently trying to write a batch program that installs a module named SetConsolePath.psm1 at the correct location. I am a beginner with Batch and I have absolutely no powershell experience.
Through the internet, I have learned how to display PSModulePath with powershell -command "echo $env:PSModulePath.
How can I, via .bat file, move SetConsolePath.psm1 from the desktop to the location displayed by powershell -command "echo $env:PSModulePath?
Thank you in advance, and I apologize for my lack of experience.
Before I answer, I must out that you do not want to copy PowerShell module files directly to the path pointed by PsModulePath. You really want to create a folder inside PSModulePath and copy the files there instead.
The prefix env in a Powershell variable indicates an environment variable. $env:PSModulePath is actually referring to the PSMODULEPATH environment variable. On the command line, and in batch files, environment variables can be displayed by placing the name between percent symbols. (In fact, you could have displayed this value by typing echo %PSMODULEPATH% instead.)
To reference the desktop folder, have a look at this answer, which shows you how to use another environment variable, USERPROFILE.
Therefore, to copy the file from the desktop directory to the path specified in PSModulePath, you would do this:
COPY "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\SetConsolePath.psm1" "%PSMODULEPATH%"
And, as I warned earlier, you really should copy the file to a folder underneath PsModulePath. So what you really want is:
IF NOT EXIST "%PSMODULEPATH%\MyNewFolder" MKDIR "%PSMODULEPATH%\MyNewFolder"
COPY "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\SetConsolePath.psm1" "%PSMODULEPATH%\MyNewFolder"
Related
When trying to open a file with text editor VIM, I am unable to open the file unless VIM (shortcut) is in my current working directory. As an example, I am able to write start firefox to open a firefox window. However, start vim C:\filepath\filename.txt does not work unless a vim shortcut is in my current directory. How do I get around this?
Also, is there a way to have a program execute a file in the current working directory without having to reference the entire file path? For example instead of Start-Process vim C:\Users\User\Desktop\File\file.txt is there an available path shortcut like Start-Process vim ~\file.txt with ~ representing the current working directory?
The OS need to determine the full path of the exe, no matter what.
There's 2 ways that it will happen.
You're calling the executable from it's working directory
The executable location is in the Windows environment variable.
You can view the PATH variable content through this simple statement
$env:Path -split ';' | sort
You sill see that the Firefox path is listed there, but not the one from VIM.
That's why the former can be started by it's executable name and the latter require the full path.
You need to add VIM directory to your PATH variable if you want to be able to call it just by typing vim
Otherwise, if you have restricted access or don't want to edit that variable, you can also set a $vim variable, then invoke it whenever you want to call the executable.
Regarding the second part of your question
Powershell use the dot as a reference to the current directory .\file.txt.
You can also just specify the filename without anything else file.txt.
Both backslash \ & slash / work for filepath so .\file.txt and ./file.txt are both valid ways to reference the file.
Use ..\ to reference the parent directory (e.g. ..\file.txt)
$Vim = "c:\Path\To\Vim.exe"
& $vim "file.txt"
& $vim ".\file.txt"
#Forward slash also work for paths
& $vim "./file.txt"
I have a powershell script that generates a report, and I have connected it to an io.filesystemwatcher. I am trying to improve the error handling capability. I already have the report generation function (which only takes in a filepath) within a try-catch loop that basically kills word, excel and powerpoint and tries again if it fails. This seems to work well but I want to embed in that another try-catch loop that will restart the computer and generate the report after reboot if it fails a second consecutive time.
I decided to try and modify the registry after reading this article: https://cmatskas.com/configure-a-runonce-task-on-windows/
my plan would be, within the second try-catch loop I will create a textfile called RecoveredPath.txt with the file path being its only contents, and then add something like:
Set-ItemProperty "HKLMU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce" -Name '!RecoverReport' -Value "C:\...EmergencyRecovery.bat"
Before rebooting. Within the batch file I have:
set /p RecoveredDir=<RecoveredPath.txt
powershell.exe -File C:\...Report.ps1 %RecoveredDir%
When I try to run the batch script, it doesn't yield any errors but doesn't seem to do anything. I tried adding in an echo statement and it is storing the value of the text file as a variable but doesn't seem to be passing it to powershell correctly. I also tried adding -Path %RecoveredDir% but that yielded an error (the param in report.ps1 is named $Path).
What am I doing incorrectly?
One potential problem is that not enclosing %RecoveredDir% in "..." would break with paths containing spaces and other special chars.
However, the bigger problem is that using mere file name RecoveredPath.txt means that the file is looked for in whatever the current directory happens to be.
In a comment your state that both the batch file and input file RecoveredPath.txt are located in your desktop folder.
However, it is not the batch file's location that matters, it's the process' current directory - and that is most likely not your desktop when your batch file auto-runs on startup.
Given that the batch file and the input file are in the same folder and that you can refer to a batch file's full folder path with %~dp0 (which includes a trailing \), modify your batch file to look as follows:
set /p RecoveredDir=<"%~dp0RecoveredPath.txt"
powershell.exe -File C:\...Report.ps1 "%RecoveredDir%"
I found a snippet of code that if I paste in PowerShell It displays all of my windows path variables on one line. What would the syntax be for adding this code to my profile?
Push-Location env:
(ls path).value.split(";")
Pop-Location
Put this function in your PowerShell profile:
function Get-Path {
$env:Path.Split(";")
}
After this function is defined, you can type Get-Path to see the list of directories in your Path.
If you don't already have a profile script, run the command help about_Profiles for more information.
Not sure why you'd prefer to see PATH variable on one line, but here's the code to do it.
C:>(ls Env:\Path).value
I prefer separate lines:
C:>(ls Env:\Path).value.split(';')
As far as your PowerShell Profile goes, open PowerShell and run:
C:>$profile
It will tell you the path to your profile (make the file and directory if it doesn't exist).
Then, copy + paste the code above into it.
It will run whenever you open powershell.
I am doing a batch scripting assignment where I have to call one script from inside another. I need the script to run the second script no matter where my lecturer saves these scripts. How would I do this. Is there some way to find the path of script inside the script and use that to execute the file. Any help would be great. I think I need to use %'s but i'm not sure.
The name of the script is Hello World.bat.
How would I copy Hello World.bat to the C:\ if I don't know which directory the lecturer has placed it in. what command/s would I use so that the copy would work regardless of the scripts location.
I don't see the "DOS" tag, but I'll assume that it is for now. If you want the entire path, you can get it by doing this:
echo %cd%
If you want just the last folder, this works (inside a .bat file):
for %%* in (.) do #echo %%~n*
Note that from the command line, the above command will work with single %'s:
for %* in (.) do #echo %~n*
If the script you are executing is calling other scripts in the SAME folder location, you can prefix the path statement with "%~dp0" or "%~dps0" but do not put a backslash between that and the name of the script you are calling. In other words, if script1.bat is calling script2.bat in the same folder, the statement in script1.bat would refer to "%~dp0script2.bat"
sorry about batch files, am not familiar, but in nix shell, there is the locate command which can return the path of the file , if you know the filename exactly and the name is unique.
like
name=$(locate filname)
I would like to move my default "My Documents\WindowsPowerShell" folder. However, when I try this, PowerShell of course can't find $profile. Is there a file or something that I can edit to point PowerShell to a different startup folder?
What I can suggest is that you dot source the file having the content of your profile in the file $profile.AllUsersAllHosts
$profile.AllUsersAllHosts is something like C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\profile.ps1
Related question: Is it possible to change the default value of $profile to a new value?
You could use junction.exe from Sysinternals to make the WindowsPowershell directory a symbolic link to another location (but not a network drive).
You could do this if you wanted to store the profile scripts at C:\POSH
junction.exe "$HOME\Documents\WindowsPowerShell" 'C:\POSH'
As far as i know you can't do that. The user profile location is always under 'My Documents\WindowsPowerShell' and your only option is to relocate your documents folder (folder redirection).
By default $Profile/$Home/$PSModulePath are all within the registry... normally under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Volatile Environment for User environment variables
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment for System environment variables
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\User Shell Folders
and elsewhere!