Vista - Demo: Writing a PS script app wrapper for Halo

Just for kicks, I decided to take an arbitrary windows game that has
commandline options and see how easily I could do a complete wrapper script
for it. The target of choice was Halo/Halo CE, and the result is
Invoke-Halo.ps1 - attached as a text file and also inserted below for the
attachment-challenged.

This doesn't do anything earth-shattering unless you've been dying to invoke
Halo from a PowerShell prompt. It does, however, show that there is some
value to using PowerShell for invoking traditional applications. For
example, it uses registry settings to find either Halo or Halo C# (if you
include the -CE switch) so the script is machine-independent - no
customization is necessary if either application is in a custom location.
Also, since it returns the process handle, it's possible to use this to
monitor process properties. For people who run gaming servers, this could be
used as part of a monitoring script that could forcibly restart the
application if it crashes or if it begins to consume too many resources.

# Invoke-Halo.ps1
# All parameters except for CE/StartInfo are PS-ified standard Halo params.
# -CE: causes Halo CE to be launched instead of Halo.
# -StartInfo: returns System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo without
# starting Halo.

Param(
[switch]$CE,
[switch]$SoundOff,
[switch]$VideoOff,
[switch]$JoystickOff,
[switch]$GammaOff,
[int]$shaders = -1,
[switch]$SafeMode,
[switch]$Windowed,
[switch]$Width640,
[array]$VideoMode = @(),
[int]$Adapter = 0,
[int]$ServerPort = 0,
[int]$ClientPort = 0,
[string]$IpAddress = "",
[switch]$Screenshot,
[switch]$Timedemo,
[switch]$Debug
)

$HaloProcess = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
#$HaloProcess.LoadUserProfile = $true;
# Let's be paranoid and assume hklm: has been un-mapped...
$RegistryPath = "Registry::hklm\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Halo";
$filename = "halo.exe";
if($CE){$RegistryPath = "$RegistryPath CE"; $filename = "haloce.exe";}
$key = Get-Item -Path $RegistryPath
$HaloProcess.WorkingDirectory = $key.GetValue("EXE Path");
# This can't be looked up in the registry.
$HaloProcess.FileName = $filename;
Remove-Variable key,filename,RegistryPath

# Build arguments string
$a = @();
if($SoundOff){$a += "-nosound"};
if($VideoOff){$a += "-novideo"};
if($JoystickOff){$a += "-nojoystick"};
if($GammaOff){$a += "-nogamma"};
if($Shaders)
{
switch($Shaders)
{
f{$a+="-useff"}
1.1{$a+="-use11"}
2{$a+="-use20"}
}
}
if($SafeMode){$a += "-safemode"};
if($Windowed){$a += "-window"};
if($Width640){$a += "-width640"};
if($VideoMode)
{
$a += "-vidmode " +
("{0},{1},{2}" -f $VideoMode[0],$VideoMode[1],$VideoMode[2])
};
if($Adapter){$a += "-adapter $Adapter"};
if($ServerPort){$a += "-port $ServerPort"};
if($ClientPort ){$a += "-cport $ClientPort"};
if($IpAddress){$a += "-ip $IpAddress"};
if($Screenshot){$a += "-screenshot"};
if($WhatIf){$a += "-timedemo"};
if($Debug){$a += "-console"};

$ofs = " "; $HaloProcess.Arguments = "$a";
if($StartInfo)
{
$HaloProcess;
}
else
{
[System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start($HaloProcess);
}