I had to run a script the other day, that I wrote some time ago to change some files in a folder, the script uses the Shell.Application COM object BrowseForFolder method, to show a GUI that lets you browse through the directory structure and choose a folder. I thought that it might come in handy one day, to have this functionality in PowerShell as well.
First off I remembered seeing someone creating a PowerShell script, that read the input from WSH’s InputBox() by using the COM object MSScriptControl.ScriptControl.
[sourcecode language=‘CSS’]
$a = new-object -comobject MSScriptControl.ScriptControl
$a.language = “vbscript”
$a.addcode(“function getInput() getInput = inputbox("Message box prompt”,"Message Box Title") end function" )
$b = $a.eval(“getInput”)
[/sourcecode]
So I thought that if you can do the simple script above, you can do something a little more advanced.
I started out by looking at the example I had allready created, just copied that to the $a.addcode line of code, that didn’t work of course. After playing with it for a while, I figured out that it was problems with my ' " ‘’s, they had to be escaped in order for the code to be evaluated correctly, so I ended up with something like this.
[sourcecode language=‘CSS’]
Function Get-Folder {
$a = New-Object -com MSScriptControl.ScriptControl
$a.language = “vbscript”
$a.addcode(“Function ShowBrowse() r Set objShell = CreateObject(“Shell.Application") r Set objFolder = objShell.BrowseForFolder (0, "Choose a Folder:”, 0, "") r If objFolder Is Nothing Then r WScript.Quit r End If r Set objFolderItem = objFolder.Self r ShowBrowse = objFolderItem.Path r End Function” )
$b = $a.eval(“ShowBrowse”)
Return $b
}
[/sourcecode]
The above has been incapsulated into a function for ease of use.
I posted the above script on the Minasi forum, and only minutes went by, before I had the first reply.. It was from no other than Don Jones himself, asking if I knew I could use COM objects directly in PowerShell, I thought to my self, Yes, I have just called one in the script above.
Then it dawned on me, I used PowerShells functionality to create a “MSScriptControl.ScriptControl” object, that then creates a “Shell.Application” object in WSH “MSScriptControl.ScriptControl” runspace. Why not create the “Shell.Application” object directly.
That gave me a lot simpler code, and a chance to slap myself for not thinking of that earlier, here is what it looks like
[sourcecode language=‘CSS’]
Function Get-folder {
$a = New-Object -ComObject “Shell.application”
$b = $a.BrowseForFolder(0,“Choose Folder”,0,"")
$c = $b.Self
$c.path
}
[/sourcecode]