How do I call an elevated PowerShell from Windows command prompt to execute commands and a PowerShell script file?

Question

The following script works fine in Powershell:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; Invoke-Webrequest
'https://blah.blob.core.windows.net/laps/AutoAutoPilot.ps1' -OutFile
C:\script.ps1; C:\script.ps1

I'm trying to convert it so that it runs as a CMD/BAT file. I simply need to double click to run it. I need the CMD/BAT file to run Powershell as administrator and from there, it will run the script from above. Here's what I have. It'll just quit straight away without doing anything.

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c Start-Process -Verb RunAs -Wait
powershell.exe '-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Noexit -c Set-Location
"\"\\\"%CD%\\\"\""; -c "& Invoke-Webrequest
\"https://blah.blob.core.windows.net/laps/AutoAutoPilot.ps1\"
-OutFile C:\script.ps1; C:\script.ps1" '

Update:

I got it working now. The full output looks like this:

powershell -Command "& ({Start-Process powershell -Verb RunAs -ArgumentList '-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoExit -Command Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://blah.blob.core.windows.net/laps/AutoAutoPilot.ps1 -OutFile C:\script.ps1; C:\script.ps1'})"

Answer 1

If you use the -NoExit parameter when starting powershell.exe PowerShell should not close after the script has finished running. Afterwards if you do not see errors, you can look at the $error variable, to see any errors which occurred when running your script.

You are trying to run your PowerShell code, using PowerShell.exe from command prompt, so you should be able to use the same code as you did before, when you were running your code directly in PowerShell before.

Answer 2

To my understanding you want to run powershell code in a batch-file.well Depending upon your preference there are multiple solutions to this problem(well i haven't checked any of them):

Solution:1
make a batch file and give your powershell script to it as a parameter.

Without Admin access:

@ECHO OFF
PowerShell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& '%~dpn0.ps1'"
PAUSE

With Admin access:

@ECHO OFF
PowerShell.exe -NoProfile -Command "& {Start-Process PowerShell.exe -ArgumentList '-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ""%~dpn0.ps1""' -Verb RunAs}"
PAUSE

Solution:2
If you don't want an external.ps1 file,then you can try this.just save it as something.bat

powershell -command if ($true)^
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; Invoke-Webrequest 'https://blah.blob.core.windows.net/laps/AutoAutoPilot.ps1' -OutFile C:\script.ps1; C:\script.ps1^

Answer 3

This should do the trick:

powershell -Command "& {Start-Process powershell -Verb RunAs -ArgumentList '-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoExit -Command Set-Location -Path C:\whatever\working\directory\you\need; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://blah.blob.core.windows.net/laps/AutoAutoPilot.ps1 -OutFile C:\script.ps1; C:\script.ps1'}"

---

Explanation:

When executing commands in PowerShell using the -Command argument, ExecutionPolicies do not apply as your are executing a single command and not a script. Even the execution of a scriptblock consisting of multiple commands counts as the execution of a single command. That's why you can directly call PowerShell from the command prompt like this (without anything else):

powershell -Command ...

-Command expects - to read from stdin or a scriptblock ( read more ). Scriptblocks have to be enclosed in curly braces ( {...} ). If you pass a scriptblock from the command prompt to PowerShell, you also have to add the call operator & :

powershell -Command "& {...}"

As you need an elevated PowerShell, you start a new PowerShell process from the previous PowerShell with Start-Process in combination with the -Verb RunAs argument. You add all arguments that you want to pass to the elevated PowerShell to the -ArgumentList argument:

... Start-Process powershell -Verb RunAs -ArgumentList '...' ...

As you want to call a script file, you now need the corresponding ExecutionPolicy. If you don't want to change it on the system, you can bypass the ExecutionPolicy with -ExecutionPolicy Bypass as you already did. And you also add -NoExit here. To pass your desired PowerShell commands, you use the -Command argument again. This time, you don't need the call operator and you can also omit the curly braces as we are now in PowerShell and not in the command prompt anymore.

... -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoExit -Command Set-Location -Path C:\whatever\working\directory\you\need; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://blah.blob.core.windows.net/laps/AutoAutoPilot.ps1 -OutFile C:\script.ps1; C:\script.ps1 ...