Vista - ps1 extension not recognized

Hi,

I'm running PowerShell via VISTA. I created a ps1 script file and tried to
run it from within the powershell command interpret. The ps1 script file
extension is not recognized as a default command script. How do I set the
file extensions that will be recognized by PowerShell?

King

The .PS1 extension isn't recognized as a security measure. Double-clicking
on a .PS1 file will cause it to open in Notepad, as well. This was a
considered choice by the PowerShell team, and one I understand from a
security perspective.

However, if after you've carefully considered the security implications, and
still want to have the .PS1 extension be recognized as an executable, you
_could_ add .PS1 to the end of the PATHEXT variable for Windows.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"King Coffee" <kcoffee@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:844823B6-7088-4210-A7E4-AAEEDE69B48E@xxxxxx

Could you check how you're doing this again, and post details? The reason I
say this is that you've got two different partial answers based on people
possibly misinterpreting what you actually did.

(A) If you WERE within PowerShell, running a PowerShell script, you might
have one of two problems (or both together).
(1) PowerShell script execution might not be enabled; to do that, you need
to run powershell with elevated privileges (right-click the PS shortcut and
Run As Administrator) and explicitly enable script execution. The following
command should allow local scripts to execute, even if unsigned:
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
If this is the problem and PowerShell can find the script, you would be
likely to get a message explicitly telling you script execution is disabled.
(2) As Robert mentions, PowerShell doesn't search the current PowerShell
location for scripts, by default. In that case, you would get a message
similar to
"The term 'foo.ps1' is not recognized as a cmdlet, function, operable
program, or script file."
Any of the workarounds Robert suggests would work.

(B) If you were NOT running within PowerShell, you're going to have several
issues with arbitrarily running a PowerShell script; generally you would
need to specify an entire command line using PowerShell's syntax. The error
you get would be something like this:
"'foo.ps1' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file."
Note that is almost identical to the wording of the error from within
PowerShell, with the word "script" changed to "batch". Charlie's answer
isn't quite complete, I believe he's forgotten about some of the file
association work that's done by magic on Unix, but not on Windows. : )

"King Coffee" <kcoffee@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:844823B6-7088-4210-A7E4-AAEEDE69B48E@xxxxxx

FYI, Charlie - that's necessary, but not sufficient. It still would need
filetype association set up (which gets really whacky, at least with PS1,
due to the fact that the filepath is parsed using PowerShell's syntax
rules), otherwise you simply get a searchable way to open the script in
notepad. : )

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <charlie@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#5vDm$mtJHA.1492@xxxxxx

From the PowerShell command line, that is sufficient. (from the GUI, you are
correct.) But from the PoSH command line, adding to the PATHEXT variable is
sufficient to save me from having to type "myscript.ps1" to execute it - I
only need to type "myscript". (Well, and depending on other factors, I may
or may not have to preceed with an ampersand, but that's a different
discussion.)

I know this works, Alex, since I got lazy on my own network and made the
change. But I did NOT change how the GUI association works. That was too
scary.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Alex K. Angelopoulos" <aka(at)mvps.org> wrote in message
news:%23Co$SmotJHA.5172@xxxxxx

Do you recall when you first had to add the extension to pathext - and would
you care to retest?

I'm asking because at least during release, I've never needed to add the
extension to make PowerShell recognize ps1 scripts as searchable items.
During command lookup, in each directory in the search path, PowerShell
automatically checks for .ps1 scripts matching a given base name before
running through the pathext extensions.

That said, I don't have the foggiest idea how the injection occurs, but
nonetheless, it works for me without hiccups on both x86 and x64 systems and
is doing so right now without having it explicitly set in pathext.


"Charlie Russel - MVP" <charlie@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eGw9NUrtJHA.4648@xxxxxx

Hmmm. Gosh, I have no idea when. Certainly way back in the Monad days, Alex.
I first wrote my RDP script back then, I'm sure. It's now gotten a good deal
smarter, and does both RDP and VMConnect sessions, depending on the name
it's called by. And I keep thinking what I really want to do is change it
again to accept a command line parameter to chose between mstsc and
vmconnect to the same virtual machine, but that might get a bit trickier
than I want to bother with, so haven't done it yet.

Tell you what, I'll go turn off PATHEXT and see if it still works without
the .ps1 added to the command name. Back shortly...

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Alex K. Angelopoulos" <aka(at)mvps.org> wrote in message
news:eOGoicxtJHA.3988@xxxxxx

Hunh! You're absolutely right, Alex. It had become so automatic that I
hadn't tested it in ages, and it is certainly no longer required. Well, I
learn something every day, and you get the prize for being today's teacher.
<G>

The annoying thing is that I'm sure I've included that in at least one book,
which means I'll have to watch for it if we do a new edition. Sigh.

One interesting byproduct of adding it to PATHEXT, by the way, is that if
you do, and you try to run the script from the CMD command line, what
happens is that it opens notepad with the file in it. Which is, of course,
what we would expect and want.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Alex K. Angelopoulos" <aka(at)mvps.org> wrote in message
news:eOGoicxtJHA.3988@xxxxxx

I think you can call that a feature, then. It doesn't actually _cause_ a
problem for anything; you just added graphical functionality for inspecting
PowerShell scripts! : D

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <charlie@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ua0Vnx4tJHA.1300@xxxxxx

Grin. Thanks again.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Alex K. Angelopoulos" <aka(at)mvps.org> wrote in message
news:%23bKb8h5tJHA.4068@xxxxxx