How to run a PowerShell script without displaying a window?

Question

How is it possible to run a PowerShell script without displaying a window or any other sign to the user?

In other words, the script should run quietly in the background without any sign to the user.

Extra credit for an answer that does not use third party components :)

Answer 1

You can either run it like this (but this shows a window for a while):

PowerShell.exe -WindowStyle hidden { your script.. }

Or you use a helper file I created to avoid the window called PsRun.exe that does exactly that. You can download the source and exe file from Run scheduled tasks with WinForm GUI in PowerShell. I use it for scheduled tasks.

Edited: as Marco noted this -WindowStyle parameter is available only for V2 and above.

Answer 2

I found out if you go to the Task in Task Scheduler that is running the powershell.exe script, you can click "Run whether user is logged on or not" and that will never show the powershell window when the task runs.

---

Drawbacks: the script can not interact with the screen of the logged on user (e.g. to display notifications or any GUI element).

Prerequisites: The user must have the "Log on as Batch Job" privilege.

Answer 3

You can use the PowerShell Community Extensions and do this:

start-process PowerShell.exe -arg $pwd\foo.ps1 -WindowStyle Hidden

You can also do this with VBScript: http://blog.sapien.com/index.php/2006/12/26/more-fun-with-scheduled-powershell/

• Schedule Hidden PowerShell Tasks (Internet Archive)

• More fun with scheduled PowerShell (Internet Archive)

(Via this forum thread.)

Answer 4

The answer with -WindowStyle Hidden is great but the windows will still flash.

I've never seen a window flash when calling it via cmd /c start /min "".

Your machine or setup may differ but it works well for me.

1. Call a file

cmd /c start /min "" powershell -WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Users\username\Desktop\test.ps1"

---

2. Call a file with arguments

cmd /c start /min "" powershell -WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command ". 'C:\Users\username\Desktop\test me.ps1' -Arg1 'Hello' -Arg2 'World'"

Powershell content for 2. Call a file with arguments is:

Param
(
  [Parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage = 'The 1st test string parameter.')]
  [String]$Arg1,
  [Parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage = 'The 2nd test string parameter.')]
  [String]$Arg2
  )

Write-Host $Arg1
Write-Host $Arg2

---

3. Call a file with a function and arguments

cmd /c start /min "" powershell -WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command ". 'C:\Users\username\Desktop\test me.ps1'; Get-Test -stringTest 'Hello World'"

Powershell content for 3. Call a file with a function and arguments is:

function Get-Test() {
  [cmdletbinding()]
  Param
  (
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage = 'The test string.')]
    [String]$stringTest
    )
  Write-Host $stringTest
  return
}

In case you need to run this in Task Scheduler then call %comspec% as the Program/Script and then code for calling the file above as the argument.

Note: All examples work when the PS1 file has spaces in its path.

Answer 5

Here's an approach that that doesn't require command line args or a separate launcher. It's not completely invisible because a window does show momentarily at startup. But it then quickly vanishes. Where that's OK, this is, I think, the easiest approach if you want to launch your script by double-clicking in explorer, or via a Start menu shortcut (including, of course the Startup submenu). And I like that it's part of the code of the script itself, not something external.

Put this at the front of your script:

$t = '[DllImport("user32.dll")] public static extern bool ShowWindow(int handle, int state);'
add-type -name win -member $t -namespace native
[native.win]::ShowWindow(([System.Diagnostics.Process]::GetCurrentProcess() | Get-Process).MainWindowHandle, 0)

Answer 6

Here's a one-liner:

mshta vbscript:Execute("CreateObject(""Wscript.Shell"").Run ""powershell -NoLogo -Command """"& 'C:\Example Path That Has Spaces\My Script.ps1'"""""", 0 : window.close")

Although it's possible for this to flash a window very briefly, that should be a rare occurrence.

Answer 7

ps1 hidden from the Task Scheduler and shortcut too

    mshta vbscript:Execute("CreateObject(""WScript.Shell"").Run ""powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass & 'C:\PATH\NAME.ps1'"", 0:close")

Answer 8

I think that the best way to hide the console screen of the PowerShell when your are running a background scripts is this code ("Bluecakes" answer).

I add this code in the beginning of all my PowerShell scripts that I need to run in background.

# .Net methods for hiding/showing the console in the background
Add-Type -Name Window -Namespace Console -MemberDefinition '
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 nCmdShow);
'
function Hide-Console
{
    $consolePtr = [Console.Window]::GetConsoleWindow()
    #0 hide
    [Console.Window]::ShowWindow($consolePtr, 0)
}
Hide-Console

If this answer was help you, please vote to "Bluecakes" in his answer in this post.

Answer 9

I was having this problem when running from c#, on Windows 7, the "Interactive Services Detection" service was popping up when running a hidden powershell window as the SYSTEM account.

Using the "CreateNoWindow" parameter prevented the ISD service popping up it's warning.

process.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("powershell.exe",
    String.Format(@" -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -encodedCommand ""{0}""",encodedCommand))
{
   WorkingDirectory = executablePath,
   UseShellExecute = false,
   CreateNoWindow = true
};

Answer 10

When you scheduled task, just select "Run whether user is logged on or not" under the "General" tab.

Alternate way is to let the task run as another user.

Answer 11

Here's a fun demo of controlling the various states of the console, including minimize and hidden.

Add-Type -Name ConsoleUtils -Namespace WPIA -MemberDefinition @'
   [DllImport("Kernel32.dll")]
   public static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();
   [DllImport("user32.dll")]
   public static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 nCmdShow);
'@

$ConsoleMode = @{
 HIDDEN = 0;
 NORMAL = 1;
 MINIMIZED = 2;
 MAXIMIZED = 3;
 SHOW = 5
 RESTORE = 9
 }

$hWnd = [WPIA.ConsoleUtils]::GetConsoleWindow()

$a = [WPIA.ConsoleUtils]::ShowWindow($hWnd, $ConsoleMode.MAXIMIZED)
"maximized $a"
Start-Sleep 2
$a = [WPIA.ConsoleUtils]::ShowWindow($hWnd, $ConsoleMode.NORMAL)
"normal $a"
Start-Sleep 2
$a = [WPIA.ConsoleUtils]::ShowWindow($hWnd, $ConsoleMode.MINIMIZED)
"minimized $a"
Start-Sleep 2
$a = [WPIA.ConsoleUtils]::ShowWindow($hWnd, $ConsoleMode.RESTORE)
"restore $a"
Start-Sleep 2
$a = [WPIA.ConsoleUtils]::ShowWindow($hWnd, $ConsoleMode.HIDDEN)
"hidden $a"
Start-Sleep 2
$a = [WPIA.ConsoleUtils]::ShowWindow($hWnd, $ConsoleMode.SHOW)
"show $a"

Answer 12

Create a shortcut that calls the PowerShell script and set the Run option to Minimized. This will prevent a window from flashing although you will still get a momentary blip of the script running on the Task Bar.

Answer 13

I got really tired of going through answers only to find it did not work as expected.

Solution

Make a vbs script to run a hidden batch file which launches the powershell script. Seems silly to make 3 files for this task but atleast the total size is less than 2KB and it runs perfect from tasker or manually (you dont see anything).

scriptName.vbs

Set WinScriptHost = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WinScriptHost.Run Chr(34) & "C:\Users\leathan\Documents\scriptName.bat" & Chr(34), 0
Set WinScriptHost = Nothing

scriptName.bat

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass C:\Users\leathan\Documents\scriptName.ps1

scriptName.ps1

Your magical code here.

Answer 14

For easy command line usage, there is a simple wrapper app:

https://github.com/stax76/run-hidden

Example command line:

run-hidden powershell -command calc.exe

Answer 15

I have created a small tool passing the call to any console tool you want to start windowless through to the original file:

https://github.com/Vittel/RunHiddenConsole

After compiling just rename the executable to "<targetExecutableName>w.exe" (append a "w"), and put it next to the original executable. You can then call e.G. powershellw.exe with the usual parameters and it wont pop up a window.

If someone has an idea how to check whether the created process is waiting for input, ill be happy to include your solution :)

Answer 16

Here is a working solution in windows 10 that does not include any third-party components. It works by wrapping the PowerShell script into VBScript.

Step 1: we need to change some windows features to allow VBScript to run PowerShell and to open .ps1 files with PowerShell by default.

-go to run and type "regedit". Click on ok and then allow it to run.

-paste this path "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.PowerShellScript.1\Shell" and press enter.

-now open the entry on the right and change the value to 0.

-open PowerShell as an administrator and type "Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned", press enter and confirm the change with "y" and then enter.

Step 2: Now we can start wrapping our script.

-save your Powershell script as a .ps1 file.

-create a new text document and paste this script.

Dim objShell,objFSO,objFile

Set objShell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objFSO=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'enter the path for your PowerShell Script
 strPath="c:\your script path\script.ps1"

'verify file exists
 If objFSO.FileExists(strPath) Then
   'return short path name
   set objFile=objFSO.GetFile(strPath)
   strCMD="powershell -nologo -command " & Chr(34) & "&{" &_
    objFile.ShortPath & "}" & Chr(34)
   'Uncomment next line for debugging
   'WScript.Echo strCMD

  'use 0 to hide window
   objShell.Run strCMD,0

Else

  'Display error message
   WScript.Echo "Failed to find " & strPath
   WScript.Quit

End If

-now change the file path to the location of your .ps1 script and save the text document.

-Now right-click on the file and go to rename. Then change the filename extension to .vbs and press enter and then click ok.

DONE! If you now open the .vbs you should see no console window while your script is running in the background.

Answer 17

Wait until Powershell is executed and get the result in vbs

This is an improved version of the Omegastripes code Hide command prompt window when using Exec()

Splits the confused responses from cmd.exe into an array instead of putting everything into a hard-to-parse string.

In addition, if an error occurs during the execution of cmd.exe, a message about its occurrence will become known in vbs.

Option Explicit
Sub RunCScriptHidden()
    strSignature = Left(CreateObject("Scriptlet.TypeLib").Guid, 38)
    GetObject("new:{C08AFD90-F2A1-11D1-8455-00A0C91F3880}").putProperty strSignature, Me
    objShell.Run ("""" & Replace(LCase(WScript.FullName), "wscript", "cscript") & """ //nologo """ & WScript.ScriptFullName & """ ""/signature:" & strSignature & """"), 0, True
End Sub
Sub WshShellExecCmd()
    For Each objWnd In CreateObject("Shell.Application").Windows
        If IsObject(objWnd.getProperty(WScript.Arguments.Named("signature"))) Then Exit For
    Next
    Set objParent = objWnd.getProperty(WScript.Arguments.Named("signature"))
    objWnd.Quit
    'objParent.strRes = CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Exec(objParent.strCmd).StdOut.ReadAll() 'simple solution
    Set exec = CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Exec(objParent.strCmd)
    While exec.Status = WshRunning
        WScript.Sleep 20
    Wend
    Dim err
    If exec.ExitCode = WshFailed Then
        err = exec.StdErr.ReadAll
    Else
        output = Split(exec.StdOut.ReadAll,Chr(10))
    End If
    If err="" Then
        objParent.strRes = output(UBound(output)-1) 'array of results, you can: output(0) Join(output) - Usually needed is the last
    Else
        objParent.wowError = err
    End If
WScript.Quit
End Sub
Const WshRunning = 0,WshFailed = 1:Dim i,name,objShell
Dim strCmd, strRes, objWnd, objParent, strSignature, wowError, output, exec

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell"):wowError=False
strCmd = "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass Write-Host Hello-World."
If WScript.Arguments.Named.Exists("signature") Then WshShellExecCmd
RunCScriptHidden
If wowError=False Then
    objShell.popup(strRes)
Else
    objShell.popup("Error=" & wowError)
End If

Answer 18

powershell.exe -windowstyle hidden -noexit -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File <path_to_file>

then set the run: Minimized

should work as expected without added code for hidden window flash just slightly more delayed execution.

Answer 19

A single vbs file solution. You first have to convert your ps script to base64 string, place it in a variable in the template shown below and save it as I vbs file. Runs without powershell popppring up.

dim EncodedCommand
EncodedCommand = "COMMAND"

pSCmd = "powershell.exe -noexit -windowstyle Hidden -executionpolicy bypass -encodedcommand " & EncodedCommand

CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Run pSCmd, 0, True

Answer 20

c="powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass (New-Object -ComObject Wscript.Shell).popup('Hello World.',0,'ОК',64)"
s=Left(CreateObject("Scriptlet.TypeLib").Guid,38)
GetObject("new:{C08AFD90-F2A1-11D1-8455-00A0C91F3880}").putProperty s,Me
WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Run c,0,false

Answer 21

Out of all the solutions I've tried, this is by far the best and easiest to set up. Download hiddenw.exe from here - https://github.com/SeidChr/RunHiddenConsole/releases

Let's say you want to run Powershell v5 consoleless. Simply rename hiddenw.exe to powershellw.exe. If you want to do this for cmd, then rename to cmdw.exe. If you want to do it for Powershell v7 (pwsh), then rename to pwshw.exe. You can create multiple copies of hiddenw.exe and just rename to the actual process with the letter w at the end. Then, simply add the process to your system environmental PATH, so you can call it from anywhere. Or just copy to C:\Windows. Then, just call it, like this:

powershellw .\example.ps1

Answer 22

I found compiling to exe was the easiest way to achieve this. Theres a number of ways to compile a script, but you can try ISE Steroids

Open "Windows PowerShell ISE", install and run ISESteroids:

Install-Module -Name "ISESteroids" -Scope CurrentUser -Repository PSGallery -Force

Start-Steroids

Then go to Tools->Turn code into EXE, select 'Hide Console Window', and then create the application. You can run this directly from task scheduler without the need for wrappers or 3rd party apps.

Answer 23

What I do is transform the .ps1 file into an invisible .exe file using an awesome app called Ps1 To Exe which you can download here : https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ps1_to_exe.html

Maybe this helps (although I hope after 12 years you have found a suitable solution... )

Answer 24

In other words, the script should run quietly in the background without any sign to the user.
Extra credit for an answer that does not use third party components :)

I found a way to do this by compiling a PowerShell script to a Windows executable. Third party modules are required to build the executable but not to run it. My end goal was to compile a one line PowerShell script that ejects a DVD on my system:

(New-Object -com "WMPlayer.OCX.7").cdromcollection.item(0).eject()

My target system is running Windows 7. The specific WMF update needed varies based on Windows version:

Download and install the WMF 5.1 package

The required PowerShell modules should be applicable to any Windows version. Here are the exact commands I used to install the necessary modules and compile the exe. You'll need to tweak the drive, directory and filename details for your system:

mkdir i:\tmp\wmf
cd i:\tmp\wmf
pkunzip ..\Win7AndW2K8R2-KB3191566-x64.zip
c:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
.\Install-WMF5.1.ps1
<click> "Restart Now"
c:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell -version 3.0
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12  
Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -MinimumVersion 2.8.5.201 -Force
Install-Module -Name ps2exe -RequiredVersion 1.0.5
ps2exe i:\utils\scripts\ejectDVD.ps1 -noConsole

Answer 25

I am lazy so I use these powershell commands to create scheduled tasks that incorporate Adam Taylor's solution above. You can edit the created task later (e.g. to change from running daily to something else):

#---adjust this part---
$script = "C:\Users\user\some-script.ps1"
$time = '5:15 AM'
$user = 'user'
$title = "Some title"
#-----------------------------------
$arguments = @'
vbscript:Execute("CreateObject(""Wscript.Shell"").Run ""powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy bypass -NoLogo -Command """"& '{script}'"""""", 0 : window.close")
'@ 
$arguments = $arguments -replace "{script}",$script
$actions = (New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "mshta" -Argument $arguments)
$trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -Daily -At $time
$principal = New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal -UserId $user 
$settings = New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet -RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable 
$task = New-ScheduledTask -Action $actions -Principal $principal -Trigger $trigger -Settings $settings
Register-ScheduledTask $title -InputObject $task