How to run a PowerShell script from a batch file

You need the -ExecutionPolicy parameter:

Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File  C:\Users\SE\Desktop\ps.ps1

Otherwise PowerShell considers the arguments a line to execute and while Set-ExecutionPolicy is a cmdlet, it has no -File parameter.


I explain both why you would want to call a PowerShell script from a batch file and how to do it in my blog post here.

This is basically what you are looking for:

PowerShell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& 'C:\Users\SE\Desktop\ps.ps1'"

And if you need to run your PowerShell script as an admin, use this:

PowerShell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& {Start-Process PowerShell -ArgumentList '-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ""C:\Users\SE\Desktop\ps.ps1""' -Verb RunAs}"

Rather than hard-coding the entire path to the PowerShell script though, I recommend placing the batch file and PowerShell script file in the same directory, as my blog post describes.


If you want to run from the current directory without a fully qualified path, you can use:

PowerShell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& './ps.ps1'"

If you run a batch file calling PowerShell as a administrator, you better run it like this, saving you all the trouble:

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Path\xxx.ps1"

It is better to use Bypass...