Play video with powershell on Windows 10

Question

I tried to use the code of this post.

When I use this code directly on PowerShell terminal it run correctly.

Add-Type -AssemblyName presentationCore
$filepath = "C:\Temp\test\Wildlife.wmv"
$wmplayer = New-Object System.Windows.Media.MediaPlayer
$wmplayer.Open($filepath)
Start-Sleep 2 
$duration = $wmplayer.NaturalDuration.TimeSpan.Seconds
$wmplayer.Close()

start playing
$proc = Start-process -FilePath wmplayer.exe -ArgumentList $filepath -PassThru

But when I run the code on .bat file, a cmd window appears and disappears in a few seconds and without further action.

If I run the .bat file on CMD, this errors appear:

enter image description here

The code inserted in .bat file is:

Add-Type -AssemblyName presentationCore
 $filepath = [uri] "C:\Users\??????\Desktop\small.mp4"
 $wmplayer = New-Object System.Windows.Media.MediaPlayer
 $wmplayer.Open($filepath)
 Start-Sleep 2 # This allows the $wmplayer time to load the audio file
 $duration = $wmplayer.NaturalDuration.TimeSpan.TotalSeconds
 $wmplayer.Play()
 Start-Sleep $duration
 $wmplayer.Stop()
 $wmplayer.Close()

I would be most thankful if you could help me solving this problem.

Thanks.

What do you mean by "insert the code"? Also your "start playing" line is probably meant to have a # at the start. — Mark Wragg, Feb 27 '17 at 22:54
I have already modified the post, I was referring to a .bat file — Iratzar Carrasson Bores, Feb 28 '17 at 08:20
Perhaps due to execution policy? Run get-executionpolicy in a powershell window and share the results — Mark Wragg, Feb 28 '17 at 08:22
It would also be helpful to see the contents of the .bat file that you're using to run the script. Also if you open a cmd prompt first and then run it, you should be able to see what error is being returned. — Mark Wragg, Feb 28 '17 at 09:10

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 28 '17 at 10:51

You are attempting to run PowerShell commands within a .bat file (as a result the PowerShell engine isn't being used to execute the code so the commands fail).

You need to save the script as a .ps1 file, then execute it from the command-line either via it's full path name or by changing to the directory where the script exists and entering:

.\scriptname.ps1

Where scriptname is the name you saved the file at.

If you want to execute the script via a .bat file, you still need to save it as a .ps1 and then create a .bat file with the following content:

Powershell.exe -File  C:\path\to\my\script\myscript.ps1

Obviously correcting the path accordingly. Note there is no advantage to running the script this way, but one reason you might use a .bat file is if you needed to change the execution policy to allow script execution (I don't think you do in your case) as follows:

Powershell.exe -executionpolicy unrestricted -File C:\path\to\my\script\myscript.ps1

I want to use this code via .bat because I going to execute this PowerShell code with autorun system in a CD. — Iratzar Carrasson Bores, Feb 28 '17 at 11:07
So then you just need to create the script as a .ps1 on the CD and call it via the autorun.bat file as I describe above. — Mark Wragg, Feb 28 '17 at 11:14

Play video with powershell on Windows 10

1 Answers1