Several folders into a zip with PowerShell

Question

I have several folders dir_01 , dir_02 , dir_03 that I want to backup in a zip file, say, backup.zip . This has to be saved in a folder with today's date. I need to get a .bat file to do the job; no additional third party executables allowed.

Here I found how to create a folder with today's date, but I am having problems to pass $destination to -DestinationPath . I created a .bat that calls PowerShell. Code giving me problems:

powershell.exe $destination = New-Item -Path 'C:\path\to\destionation' -ItemType Directory -Name ("$(Get-Date -f yyyy-MM-dd)")

powershell.exe -nologo -noprofile -command Compress-Archive -Path 'C:\path\dir_01', 'C:\path\dir_02', 'C:\path\dir_03' -DestinationPath $destination\backup.zip -Force

The error message is the following:

New-Object : Exception calling ".ctor" with "2" argument(s): "Access to the path 'C:\backup.zip' is denied."
At
C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\Microsoft.PowerShell.Archive\Microsoft.PowerShell.Archive.psm1:729
char:30
+ ... ileStream = New-Object -TypeName System.IO.FileStream -ArgumentList $ ...
+                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [New-Object], MethodInvocationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ConstructorInvokedThrowException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.NewObjectCommand

However, the code works if I hard-code the path to destination, like this:

powershell.exe -nologo -noprofile -command Compress-Archive -Path 'C:\path\dir_01', 'C:\path\dir_02', 'C:\path\dir_03' -DestinationPath 'C:\whole\path\backup.zip' -Force

But doing so, I'm unable to save backup.zip in today's folder.

Question: How can I save backup.zip in the folder that I created with today's date?

Answer 1

You can perform both commands in the same PowerShell session by separating them with a semicolon.

powershell.exe $destination = New-Item -Path 'C:\path\to\destionation' -ItemType Directory -Name ("$(Get-Date -f yyyy-MM-dd)"); Compress-Archive -Path 'C:\path\dir_01', 'C:\path\dir_02', 'C:\path\dir_03' -DestinationPath $destination\backup.zip -Force

That will launch PowerShell and have it create the folder and then zip things into it in the same session, rather than create a session, in that session create a folder, close the session, start a new PowerShell session, zip things up, close the second session.