Windows shortcut to a PowerShell script with relative path

Question

When creating a Windows shortcut to launch a PowerShell script the following works fine when double clicked as a regular user and with right click Run as administrator:

%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy "Bypass" -Command "&{& 'C:\Script.ps1'}"

However, when the path is relative and not known upfront the following works fine when double clicked as a regular user but not with right click Run as administrator:

%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy "Bypass" -Command "&{& '.\Script.ps1'}"

My question, how can I have it work in both cases when the path is relative? I tried using PSScriptRoot but that didn't work either.

Thank you for your help.

Relative to what? Your `Start in` box is blank in the screenshot. Are you filling that box, or is there some other path you're using to start from? — Ryan Bemrose, Jul 29 '16 at 18:30
Here's my solution to this problem: http://stackoverflow.com/a/35054677/368889 — Mica, Sep 08 '16 at 05:42

Ryan Bemrose · Answer 1 · 2016-08-01T15:07:49.900

2

When launching as admin from Explorer, you must provide an absolute path to the script.

Explorer.exe ignores the starting directory from the shortcut when launching a process as admin. Instead, Admin-level processes always launch with the current directory in [Environment]::GetFolderPath('System') (usually C:\Windows\System32)

The easy way to run in a different directory is to change directory at the beginning of your script. The following line will cd to the directory the script is in.

Set-Location $PsScriptRoot

If the script needs to start in a different path, then you may have to write a function to discover where that path is on the local machine (such as enumerating USB drives)

edited Aug 01 '16 at 15:07

answered Jul 29 '16 at 19:01

Ryan Bemrose

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Thanks for the help Ryan. The problem is that the script launcher and script can be on a USB stick or on a network share somewhere. So the location where it's located is different. Can this be accounted for with `Set-Location`? And indeed, the `Start in` stays empty as we don't know that upfront. – DarkLite1 Aug 01 '16 at 08:15
Updated the answer to be a bit simpler. BTW, `Set-Location` is the same as `cd` . The latter is just an alias for the former. – Ryan Bemrose Aug 01 '16 at 15:09

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 13 '18 at 19:10

You can use your current solution for non-admin promoted shortcuts then auto promote the script internally:

# ========================================= Admin Rights =======================================================
# Usage: asAdmin $PSCommandPath
function asAdmin
{
    [string]$cmdPath = $args[0]
    if (!([Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal][Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole] "Administrator")) { Start-Process powershell.exe "-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File `"$cmdPath`"" -Verb RunAs; exit }
}

fred727 · Answer 3 · 2023-03-22T11:51:13.350

The only solution I found is :

Create a CMD script with these 2 lines :

cd %~dp0
powershell.exe -noexit "& .\your-script.ps1"

Make a shortcut of this CMD and edit properties to execute it as admin

You can now use the Shortcut to execute your powershell script as administrator with a relative path.

And if you change the location of the cmd file, or if you rename the folder which contain your scripts, windows seems to don't care about it (properties of the shortcut are updated)...

Windows shortcut to a PowerShell script with relative path

3 Answers3

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