So I'm trying to write a script which updates the hp bios version of a device, could someone tell me how I can start the .exe and accept everything needed without having to run it manually?
#How can I execute an .exe file and accept all requirements?
quaint rock
winter mica
please refer to the documentation or help for the exe
quaint rock
please refer to the documentation or help for the exe
you mean I should look at it myself or you want information for it?
winter mica
you need to find / read it. There's no rules for exe's. They're all dirty snowflakes using whatever rules whoever wrote it dreamt up.
There's really not much PS can do to help you here.
if it's a public thing, I'd check and see if chocolatey has a package for it. If it does, that package will likely reveal and silent arguments
there's a couple of websites that document silent args for things too that are worth a shot
quaint rock
I got told there'd be an option called -AcceptLicense, though that's not working.
winter mica
yep, but that just loops back to "you need docs"
sys internals has a Strings utility which can be used to attempt to search an exe for arguments. But it's basically just scraping the file looking for embedded strings of a certain length
took a moment to find it, worth seeing if your package is listed here at all: https://silent-install.net/
quaint rock
it's not :(
winter mica
this is, unfortunately, one of the perils of trying to package stuff
this is the strings utility if you want to try it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/strings
it literally just tries to find stuff that might be a command line argument
quaint rock
So when I executed it manually I had to accept the license and stuff and THEN the computer restarted as it should've.
Though the script should execute the .exe
winter mica
yes, but the script can't just magic the GUI clicky requirement away
quaint rock
and that's what I'm trying to do, that it clicks through the GUI but the user doesn't see it when executing it.
winter mica
then you need to find the silent args, if it has any. If it doesn't you can look at Auto-Hot Key perhaps
quaint rock
alright, I'll look it up.
So you can press keys via the script?
like tell the script to type something
winter mica
not trivially, no
PS is not a UI automation language. You can try SendKeys, but it's quite basic
this is a reasonable example of attempting to send key strokes to a specific window: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54999200/send-keys-in-powershell-altn-tab-enter You'll need to swap that gps iex* part to the process ID of the license prompt window.
ofc it would be far better to not have to deal with the prompt at all, so silent args if you can find them
quaint rock
got it working :D