Powershell running as a another user with elevated privileges

Question

I have two scripts located in C:\setup: script.ps1 and script1.ps1.

I want to be able to run the script1.ps1 from withing script.ps1 as another user and with elevated privileges but I cannot make it work. The new powershell window opens but closes immediately ...

here is the script:

 $cspath = $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path
 $sfolder = Split-Path $cspath
 $spath = Join-Path $sfolder "\Script1.ps1"

 $sa = "domain\user"
 $sap = "userpassword"
 $sasp = ConvertTo-SecureString -String $sap -AsPlainText -Force
 $sac = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $sa, $sasp 


 Start-Process $PSHOME\powershell.exe `
            -Credential $sac `
            -ArgumentList "-Command Start-Process $PSHOME\powershell.exe -ArgumentList `"'$spath'`" -Verb Runas" -Wait 

Any help will be appreciated ...

Answer 1

It looks like you might need to adjust your parameters for powershell.exe. Instead of using -ArgumentList, which I don't think is valid, you should use the -File parameter. Also, you will want to use the -ExecutionPolicy Bypass parameter to ensure that the script execution policy is not interfering.

Finally, I would recommend removing the single quotes from around the script path, as the Windows command interpreter does not understand single quotes to surround parameters.

Give this a try:

$ArgumentList = '-Command Start-Process -FilePath $PSHOME\powershell.exe -ArgumentList "-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File \"{0}\"" -Verb Runas' -f $sPath;
Start-Process $PSHOME\powershell.exe `
    -Credential $sac `
    -ArgumentList $ArgumentList -Wait 

Update

It seems that some quoting rules were at play here as well, since we are embedding one command inside of another. I wrote and tested a fully function script on PowerShell v4.0.

Here are the contents:

# Create test directory and script file
[void](New-Item -Path c:\test -ItemType Directory -Force);
Set-Content -Path c:\test\test1.ps1 -Value 'Add-Content -Path $PSScriptRoot\blah.txt -Value (Get-Date);';

# Get credential and define script path
$Credential = Get-Credential;
$ScriptPath = 'c:\test\test1.ps1';

# Define the command line arguments
$ArgumentList = 'Start-Process -FilePath powershell.exe -ArgumentList \"-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "{0}"\" -Verb Runas' -f $ScriptPath;

Start-Process -FilePath powershell.exe `
    -Credential $Credential `
    -ArgumentList $ArgumentList -Wait -NoNewWindow;

I can confirm that I get a UAC prompt, and the target script successfully executes.

Answer 2

Since you're concerned about the new session window closing, I'm guessing you want command line output.

Start-Process is working as intended. It will run the script passed in through -ArgumentList and exit the session. This means it will not hold to display command line output - the session will terminate immediately after the process completes.

If you want a persistent session, use New-PSSession. Otherwise, you could export the data you're gathering to a file.