How to run a Metro-App from PowerShell on Windows 8?

Question

Related to another question on Superuser, I'm trying to run a Metro based application from the command-line. According to a comment on my superuser question, I could maybe find an answear on a PowerShell command or script. I already tried but found anything on any internet reference about PowerShell and Windows 8...

So, there is some specific way/command to call and run a Metro-style application from a PowerShell command on Windows 8?

[`IApplicationActivationManager::ActivateApplication`](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh706903.aspx). I'm not at all familiar with PowerShell, though. — James McNellis, Jun 11 '12 at 17:36
Are you sure this works on Metro apps? "Applies to: desktop apps only" — Diogo, Jun 11 '12 at 17:38
That means that that API can only be called from a desktop app. — James McNellis, Jun 11 '12 at 17:42
Hmm, sure, I will try to use it to open a metro aplication with powershel... Thank you. — Diogo, Jun 11 '12 at 17:44
You can enumerate and find registered packages via [`PackageManager`](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.management.deployment.packagemanager). — James McNellis, Jun 11 '12 at 17:45
@IrisClasson Yes, Kind of.... I answered another question made on [Superuser](http://superuser.com/q/433477/79358). — Diogo, Jul 16 '12 at 16:37

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 01 '12 at 22:39

There is no direct way to do this but there are a couple indirect ways.

vsdebuglaunchnotify, which comes with Visual Studio, can be called from PowerShell.

You could create your own exe that uses IApplicationActivationManager.

If the app is associated with any file types you could launch an associated file.

More information is covered in this thread on MSDN:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsgeneraldevelopmentissues/thread/8d1b0861-5903-4289-8cb8-541ddaa012fb

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 08 '14 at 10:09

Here's a blog post by Powertoe that uses the IApplicationActivationManager way of doing it:

http://powertoe.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/get-a-list-of-metro-apps-and-launch-them-in-windows-8-using-powershell/

He provides code here http://poshcode.org/3740 that provides a Start-MetroApp commandlet for powershell.

Alternatively: I think some Metro Apps have protocol handlers, so that you can talk to them via a URI (e.g. "appname:dosomething") but I'm not sure how widely used this is.

How to run a Metro-App from PowerShell on Windows 8?

2 Answers2

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