How do I make Powershell run a batch file and then stay open?

Question

For example; with the old command prompt it would be:

cmd.exe /k mybatchfile.bat 

Answer 1

Drop into a cmd instance (or indeed PowerShell itself) and type this:

powershell -? 

You'll see that powershell.exe has a "-noexit" parameter which tells it not to exit after executing a "startup command".

Answer 2

When running PowerShell.exe just provide the -NoExit switch like so:

PowerShell -NoExit -File "C:\SomeFolder\SomePowerShellScript.ps1"  PowerShell -NoExit -Command "Write-Host 'This window will stay open.'" 

Or if you want to run a file and then run a command and have the window stay open, you can do something like this:

PowerShell -NoExit "& 'C:\SomeFolder\SomePowerShellScript.ps1'; Write-Host 'This window will stay open.'" 

The -Command parameter is implied if not provided, and here we use the & to call the PowerShell script, and the ; separates the PowerShell commands.

Also, at the bottom of my blog post I show a quick registry change you can make in order to always have PowerShell remain open after executing a script/command, so that you don't need to always explicitly provide the -NoExit switch all the time.