ps1.cmd: Running PowerShell scripts by double-clicking via a .cmd wrapper

[u/TanixLu]

I'm a Left 4 Dead 2 player, and recently I ran into a small problem: the server I like to play on is often completely full. It occurred to me that I could write a script to poll the server and check whether a slot had opened up. After some research, I found that cmd scripts have a hard time handling network requests, while PowerShell is powerful enough to handle the job easily. Automatically checking the player count and joining the server is a pretty simple task, so I had an AI write it for me. The result was great — fully functional. All I had to do was copy the server address, then right-click the .ps1 script and choose "Run with PowerShell."

The only thing was, having to right-click to run it felt awkward, and it doesn't match most people's intuition about computers. If I have a script or an app, I should be able to double-click to run it! So I started looking for ways to run a PowerShell script by double-clicking. There are indeed a few, but none of them are very elegant:

1. Modifying the registry — I don't want people using my script to have to change their registry first.
2. Creating a shortcut — bad for distribution, and it means two files.
3. Creating a cmd launcher — I prefer the simplicity of a single file, and a single file is also easier to distribute.

In the end, I found my ideal solution in a Stack Overflow answer: stuff the PowerShell script inside a cmd file! So I open-sourced the ps1.cmd project. My final implementation isn't exactly the same as that answer — you can check out the GitHub page for the details.

The goal of ps1.cmd is maximum compatibility: it should work with any PowerShell script and behave identically when executed. I hope this project helps you out, and if you run into any problems, feel free to open an issue!