How to run a PowerShell script from a batch file

Question

You need the -ExecutionPolicy parameter:

Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File  C:\Users\SE\Desktop\ps.ps1

Otherwise PowerShell considers the arguments a line to execute and while Set-ExecutionPolicy is a cmdlet, it has no -File parameter.

I explain both why you would want to call a PowerShell script from a batch file and how to do it in my blog post here.

This is basically what you are looking for:

PowerShell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& 'C:\Users\SE\Desktop\ps.ps1'"

And if you need to run your PowerShell script as an admin, use this:

PowerShell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& {Start-Process PowerShell -ArgumentList '-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ""C:\Users\SE\Desktop\ps.ps1""' -Verb RunAs}"

Rather than hard-coding the entire path to the PowerShell script though, I recommend placing the batch file and PowerShell script file in the same directory, as my blog post describes.

If you want to run from the current directory without a fully qualified path, you can use:

PowerShell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& './ps.ps1'"

If you run a batch file calling PowerShell as a administrator, you better run it like this, saving you all the trouble:

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Path\xxx.ps1"

It is better to use Bypass...

Small sample test.cmd

<# :
  @echo off
    powershell /nologo /noprofile /command ^
         "&{[ScriptBlock]::Create((cat """%~f0""") -join [Char[]]10).Invoke(@(&{$args}%*))}"
  exit /b
#>
Write-Host Hello, $args[0] -fo Green
#You programm...

If you want to run a few scripts, you can use Set-executionpolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted and then reset with Set-executionpolicy -ExecutionPolicy Default.

Note that execution policy is only checked when you start its execution (or so it seems) and so you can run jobs in the background and reset the execution policy immediately.

# Check current setting
Get-ExecutionPolicy

# Disable policy
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
# Choose [Y]es

Start-Job { cd c:\working\directory\with\script\ ; ./ping_batch.ps1 example.com | tee ping__example.com.txt }
Start-Job { cd c:\working\directory\with\script\ ; ./ping_batch.ps1 google.com  | tee ping__google.com.txt  }

# Can be run immediately
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Default
# [Y]es

Another easy way to execute a ps script from batch is to simply incorporate it between the ECHO and the Redirection characters,(> and >>), example:

@echo off
set WD=%~dp0
ECHO New-Item -Path . -Name "Test.txt" -ItemType "file" -Value "This is a text string." -Force > "%WD%PSHELLFILE.ps1"
ECHO add-content -path "./Test.txt" -value "`r`nThe End" >> "%WD%PSHELLFILE.ps1"
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "%WD%PSHELLFILE.ps1"
del "%WD%PSHELLFILE.ps1"

Last line deletes the created temp file.