Calling PowerShell from batch, and retrieving the new value of a temporary environment variable set in the script?

To get Keith's idea of using stdout to work, you can invoke powershell from your batch script like this:

FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %v IN (`powershell -noprofile "& { get-date }"`) DO set "d=%v"

A little awkward, but it works:

C:\>FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %v IN (`powershell -noprofile "& { get-date }"`) DO set "d=%v"C:\>set dd=August 5, 2010 11:04:36 AM

I know it's a little bit late to answer this question, but I would like to give it a try just in case any one needs more detailed solution. So, here it goes.

I created a batch function that would execute ps script for you and return a value, something like this:

:: A function that would execute powershell script and return a value from it.:: <PassPSCMD> pass the powreshell command, notice that you need to add any returning value witth Write-Host:: <RetValue> the returned value:RunPS <PassPSCMD> <RetValue>  Powershell Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force  for /F "usebackq tokens=1" %%i in (`Powershell %1`) do set returnValue=%%i  set "%2=%returnValue%"Goto:eof:: End of :RunPS function

Now, as an example to use it:

set psCmd="&{ Write-Host 'You got it';}"call :RunPS %psCmd% RetValueecho %RetValue%

This will display on console screen You got it

As a more complicated example, I would add:

Let's assume that we want to check if a VM is Up or Down, meaning if it's powered on or off, so we can do the following:

 :CheckMachineUpOrDown <returnResult> <passedMachineName>   set userName=vCenterAdministratorAccount   set passWord=vCenterAdminPW   set vCenterName=vcenter.somedmain.whatever   set psCmd="&{Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core; Connect-VIServer -server %%vCenterName%% -User %userName% -Password %passWord%; $vmServer = Get-VM %2;Write-Host ($vmServer.PowerState -eq 'PoweredOn')}"   call :RunPS %psCmd% RetValue   if "%RetValue%" EQU "True" (set "%1=Up") else (set "%1=Down") Goto:eof:: A function that would execute powershell script and return a value from it.:: <PassPSCMD> pass the powreshell command, notice that you need to add any returning value witth Write-Host:: <RetValue> the returned value:RunPS <PassPSCMD> <RetValue>  Powershell Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force  for /F "usebackq tokens=1" %%i in (`Powershell %1`) do set returnValue=%%i  set "%2=%returnValue%"  Goto:eof:: End of :RunPS function

Now, how to use :CheckMachineUpOrDown function?

just follow this example:

set Workstation=MyVMNamecall :CheckMachineUpOrDown VMStatus %Workstation%echo %VMStatus%

This will display Up if the VM is Powered On or Down if the machine is Off.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks

The most straight forward way to capture results from PowerShell is to use stdout in PowerShell. For example, this saves the date to the d env var in cmd.exe

set d = powershell -noprofile "& { get-date }"