Specify user when building exe

PowerShell Tools
1 
Tool: Visual Studio Code
Version: 5.29.4

Is there a way to specify a RunAs user when packaging the exe? So that when the EXE is run it is always run as that specific user.

Also, in the Resources = [string[]]@() section of the package.psd1 do all files have to be in the root directory or can you specify sub folders and files ie. Resources = [string[]]@("file1.jpg","folder\file2.jpg")

2

There isn’t a way to specify a user for an exe. You’d have to store the credentials in it somehow, which I would advise against.

For resources, you should be able to do nested directories. I’m about 99% sure I tested this but I’d be curious if you are running into problems.

3

Not to worried about stored credentials for our purpose. Possible feature in the future? :slight_smile:

Haven’t tried the nested directories yet, just thought i’d ask.

4

Sure. It’s something we can look into. We would likely be able to do some impersonation within the process to achieve this. I’ll open a feature request for it.

5

Awesome. Thanks.

Another question about including resources when packaging. The documentation shows how to reference the resource in XAML. How would you reference these files in the PowerShell script?

Specifically, I am creating a WPF UI for a script and need to Load some DLLs (ie [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom('assembly\MaterialDesignThemes.Wpf.dll'). But i can’t seem to get the sourcing correct in the script for it to work in an exe.

6

You’ll need to read the assembly embedded resource directly and then use Assembly.Load to load the bytes.

Here’s some C# code that you should be able to adapt to PowerShell.

   using (var stream = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("EmbedAssembly.EmbeddedAssemblies.Newtonsoft.Json.dll"))
    {
        var assemblyData = new Byte[stream.Length];
        stream.Read(assemblyData, 0, assemblyData.Length);
        return Assembly.Load(assemblyData);
    }

Sometimes the hardest part is finding the proper manifest resource name. You can list those with this method call.

    foreach ($resource in [Assembly]::GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceNames()) {
        Write-Host "Resource: $resource"
}
7

Thanks. I’ll have to look into that a little more. This is the first time I have had to work with DLLs in a script.

8

Hello all,

This is my first project to convert a PS1 to EXE with embedded resources, in this case 1 exe file and 3 xml files alongside the ps1 itself. (this is the officedeploy tool with setup.exe and 3 different xml files for the configuration switches.

the PS1 is a windows.form with 3 buttons, each of them calling the setup.exe with different switch

so I need to carry the 4 files along with the script itself

anyway, i manage to load the 4 files as resources:

Resources = [string]@(“.\setup.exe”,“.\RemoveAllOfficeProducts.xml”,“.\M365-App-Ent_X64_matchOS_RemoveALL_MonthlyUpdate.xml”,“.\M365-App-Ent_X64_matchOS_MonthlyUpdate.xml”)

and I added the function Get-ResourceAsString you recommand to stream the package.

I can get the content of the files but not the files themselves.

Get-ResourceAsString -Name ‘RemoveAllOfficeProducts.xml’ gives me the content of the xml

Get-ResourceAsString -Name ‘setup.exe’ gives me thousand of lines unreadable

how can i get the relative path of the 4 files ?

Thanks,