Powershell Script doesn't work when starting it by double-clicking

Question

I got some strange behaviour when executing a powershell script.

• When I run my script using the ISE it works just fine.
• When I open Powershell.exe and run my script it works just fine.
• When I open cmd, and start my script using powershell.exe -noexit ./myscript.ps1, myscript works just fine.

When I double-click myscript however, powershell opens for some milliseconds, I see that it shows some error (red font) and the powershell window closes. I'm unable to track down the error causing this problem since the powershell windows closes to fast. I even tried one single big try-catch block around my hole script, catching any [Exception] and writing it down to a log file. However: the log file is not generated (catch is not called).

How can I track that issue? What could possibly be causing the trouble? Please note that my execution-policy is set to unrestricted.

Answer 1

Before trying the suggestion invoke this to see your current settings (if you want restore them later):

cmd /c FType Microsoft.PowerShellScript.1

Then invoke this (note that you will change how your scripts are invoked "from explorer" by this):

cmd /c @"
FType Microsoft.PowerShellScript.1=$PSHOME\powershell.exe -NoExit . "'%1'" %*
"@

Then double-click the script, it should not exit, -NoExit does the trick. See your error messages and solve the problems. But now all your scripts invoked "from explorer" keep their console opened. You may then remove -NoExit from the above command and run it again or restore your original settings.

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Some details and one good way to invoke scripts in PS v2 is here. Unfortunately it is broken in PS v3 - submitted issue.

Answer 2

by default, for security reason when you double clic on a .ps1 file the action is : Edit file, not Run file .
to execute your script : right-click on it and choose run with powershell