Powershell - Start-Process to launch hello world is not working

Glowie picture Glowie · Aug 29, 2013 · Viewed 11k times · Source

I am trying to figure out how to run powershell script with elevated credentials, and was told the best way to do this was with Start-Process

And this website, http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/132e170f-e3e8-4178-9454-e37bfccd39ea/startprocess-verb-runas-credential is also good reference

But I am still having trouble.

I created one script for testing purposes, hello.ps1

write-host Hello World

That runs well by itself

Then, I created another script to invoke Hello World with elevated credentials

<#Previously created password file in C:\Script\cred.txt, read-host -assecurestring | convertfrom-securestring | out-file C:\Script\cred.txt#>

$password = get-content C:\Script\cred.txt | convertto-securestring
$credentials = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist "DOMAIN\Username",$password
$script = "C:\script\hello.ps1"
Start-Process powershell -Credential $credentials -verb runas -ArgumentList "-file $script"

And I get error:

At C:\script\my_script.ps1:6 char:14
+ Start-Process <<<<  powershell -Credential $credentials -verb runas -ArgumentList "-file $script"
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Start-Process], ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : AmbiguousParameterSet,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.StartProcessCommand

EDIT

@Adi Inbar

I updated the code as follows

$password = get-content C:\Script\cred.txt | convertto-securestring
$credentials = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist "DOMAIN\Username",$password
$script = "C:\Script\hello.ps1"
Start-Process powershell -Credential $credentials  -ArgumentList "-file $script"

But now a cmd windows pops up and the output is blank, instead of the expected "Hello World"

EDIT

And I read that you must include -FilePath if you include -Credential, but code is still not working :-(

It just pops-up the cmd window and no output is written in powershell_ise.exe GUI

<#Previously created password file in C:\Script\cred.txt, read-host -assecurestring | convertfrom-securestring | out-file C:\Script\cred.txt#>

$password = get-content C:\Script\cred.txt | convertto-securestring
$credentials = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist "DOMAIN\Username",$password
$script = "C:\Script\hello.ps1"
Start-Process -FilePath C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -Credential $credentials -ArgumentList "-file $script"

Answer

Adi Inbar picture Adi Inbar · Aug 29, 2013

-Verb and -Credential are in different parameter sets. They cannot be used together. -Verb runas doesn't run the specified process as a different user (not to be confused with the runas command), it uses UAC to run the process with elevated privileges in the current user's context, like right-clicking and selecting "Run as administrator".

Just get rid of -Credential $credentials, and run the script while logged in with an account that has local admin privileges.