Running powershell script from explorer = execution policy error

powershell

In windows 7 final I've done: Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted
In windows explorer, I select a script.ps1 file, select open with, put in c:\windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
A powershell window flashes briefly with an error about execution policy.

Scripts run fine from within powershell. How can I run them from windows explorer?

Are you sure it's an execution policy error? If it's PowerShell v2, try including the -File parameter before the file name:

"C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -File "%1"

I would probably use the -file argument, as in

-file "C:\PowershellScripts\script.ps1"

you may need to set the execution policy first if it's not already set to unrestricted on your system.

On my machine, a Windows 7 64-bit box with 64-bit Eclipse and a 64-bit jdk (1.6), I am able to get things to work if I set the "arguments" field to:

-executionpolicy unrestricted -file "c:\code\test.ps1"

An alternative that also worked for me was:

Set the application to launch as C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe Set the arguments field to something like:

/c "powershell -executionpolicy unrestricted -file c:\code\test.ps1"

That does seem excessively Rube Goldbergian to me, but it's worth a try to see if your problems can be worked around by using a normal shell.

I did briefly get symptoms similar to what you describe, but I can't reproduce them anymore.

Launch Windows PowerShell, and wait a moment for the PS command prompt to appear
Navigate to the directory where the script lives
```
PS> cd C:\my_path\yada_yada\ (enter)
```
Execute the script:
```
PS> .\run_import_script.ps1 (enter)
```

What am I missing??

Or: you can run the PowerShell script from cmd.exe like this:

powershell -noexit "& ""C:\my_path\yada_yada\run_import_script.ps1""" (enter)

according to this blog post here

Or you could even run your PowerShell script from your C# application :-)