Add a Windows mode for native commands that allows some commands to use legacy argument passing by JamesWTruher · Pull Request #15408 · PowerShell/PowerShell

James Truher (JamesWTruher) · 2021-05-14T20:31:57Z

PR Summary

This PR targets a consistent default behavior between PowerShell 5 and PowerShell 7 on Windows for some executables and file types. The behavior is now update to use the legacy behavior for the following files:

cmd.exe
cscript.exe
wscript.exe
ending with .bat
ending with .cmd
ending with .vbs

This list is table driven, and can be easily altered. I have started with this list as I am familiar with real world issues with them.

The PSNativeArgumentPassing preference value has been expanded to include the new value Windows. When the preference variable is set to Windows the above table will be in effect, meaning that invocations of those files will automatically use the Legacy style argument passing. If the PSNativeArgumentPassing is set to either Legacy or Standard, then the additional checks will not take place.

The default behavior is now also platform specific. On Windows platforms, the default setting will be Windows and non-Windows platforms will be Standard.

PR Context

PR Checklist

Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT) · 2021-05-21T01:34:06Z

I believe this PR addresses part of #15143

James Truher (JamesWTruher) · 2021-05-28T19:24:16Z

Steve Lee (@SteveL-MSFT) - I think I've addressed your issues, please let me know

Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT) · 2021-05-29T15:14:46Z

James Truher (@JamesWTruher) one comment was not addressed

Ilya (iSazonov) · 2021-06-03T17:12:02Z

No need to allocate. We can do if (filePath.EndsWith(exception, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreVase)) in line 1302.

Keith Hill (rkeithhill) · 2021-06-03T22:12:13Z

I'm not sure this is working completely for cmd.exe - ie excluding cmd.exe. preview.6 breaks the Invoke-BatchFile command we have implemented in PSCX:

PS> invoke-batchfile 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat' amd64
'\"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat\"' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

This is basically Lee Holmes old function that we have implemented in PSCX:

function Invoke-BatchFile
{
    param([string]$Path, [string]$Parameters)

    $tempFile = [IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()

    ## Store the output of cmd.exe.  We also ask cmd.exe to output
    ## the environment table after the batch file completes
    cmd.exe /c " `"$Path`" $Parameters && set " > $tempFile
    ...
}

Reverting to Legacy makes this function work again but at this rate I suspect I'll be running Legacy on all my Windows installs. :-(

Deleted user (ghost) · 2021-06-11T02:00:08Z

This pull request has been automatically marked as Review Needed because it has been there has not been any activity for 7 days.
Maintainer, please provide feedback and/or mark it as Waiting on Author

James Truher (JamesWTruher) · 2021-06-14T19:23:31Z

Keith Hill (@rkeithhill) wrt the pscx issue that you mentioned. Have you tried running this branch against your scenario? This PR is supposed to automatically put the arg passing into legacy mode for cmd.exe invocations, so it should be fine (but I would really like confirmation on that). I've added validation for that very scenario, but I might have missed something.

Keith Hill (rkeithhill) · 2021-06-14T21:54:47Z

I built this branch and yes, that command works now while I still have the mode set to Windows:

James Truher (JamesWTruher) · 2021-06-15T17:18:41Z

Keith Hill (@rkeithhill) - excellent - the default setting for windows will be "Windows", which is the hybrid model where certain commands will run as Legacy while others will use "Standard". This should hopefully be better and allow the wacky parsing that happens for batch files, but enable more modern apps to use the new style.

Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT)

Please take a look at Rob's suggestion

Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT) · 2021-07-19T18:19:03Z

Reassigning to Rob Holt (@rjmholt) as Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw) is taking time off right now

Rob Holt (rjmholt) · 2021-07-20T21:19:07Z

Opened JamesWTruher#15 to add remaining suggested changes

Make suggested changes to NativeArgPassing PR

Rob Holt (rjmholt) · 2021-07-20T22:28:36Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2021-07-20T22:29:12Z

Azure Pipelines successfully started running 6 pipeline(s).

Deleted user (ghost) · 2021-07-22T21:42:10Z

🎉v7.2.0-preview.8 has been released which incorporates this pull request.:tada:

Handy links:

Release Notes

…se legacy argument passing (PowerShell#15408)

ghost assigned Ilya (iSazonov) May 14, 2021

James Truher (JamesWTruher) force-pushed the NativeArgPassing002 branch 2 times, most recently from 2fe31da to 8ed04ee Compare May 17, 2021 23:01

Ilya (iSazonov) assigned Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) and unassigned Ilya (iSazonov) May 18, 2021

James Truher (JamesWTruher) force-pushed the NativeArgPassing002 branch from a791375 to 3ca1aff Compare May 20, 2021 19:10

James Truher (JamesWTruher) requested review from Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT) and Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) May 20, 2021 21:41

James Truher (JamesWTruher) changed the title ~~WIP: Native argument passing adjustments for Windows systems~~ Native argument passing adjustments for Windows systems May 20, 2021

Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT) requested changes May 20, 2021

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Comment thread src/System.Management.Automation/engine/NativeCommandProcessor.cs Outdated

Comment thread src/System.Management.Automation/engine/NativeCommandProcessor.cs Outdated

Comment thread test/powershell/Language/Scripting/NativeExecution/NativeCommandArguments.Tests.ps1 Outdated

ghost added Waiting on Author The PR was reviewed and requires changes or comments from the author before being accept and removed Waiting on Author The PR was reviewed and requires changes or comments from the author before being accept labels May 20, 2021

James Truher (JamesWTruher) force-pushed the NativeArgPassing002 branch from 135cab4 to 778e8e0 Compare May 26, 2021 20:02

James Truher (JamesWTruher) requested a review from Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT) June 3, 2021 16:13

Ilya (iSazonov) reviewed Jun 3, 2021

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Keith Hill (rkeithhill) mentioned this pull request Jun 8, 2021

Tokenizer treats . as a separator when parsing a parameter token, which causes problem to argument parsing for native commands #15541

Closed

ghost added the Review - Needed The PR is being reviewed label Jun 11, 2021

Sean Wheeler (sdwheeler) mentioned this pull request Jun 11, 2021

Document that Start-Process -ArgumentList does not preserve the argument vector or do any quoting MicrosoftDocs/PowerShell-Docs#7701

Closed

6 tasks

James Truher (JamesWTruher) force-pushed the NativeArgPassing002 branch from fc7da11 to 350c8b0 Compare June 14, 2021 16:39

Steve Lee (SteveL-MSFT) requested changes Jun 15, 2021

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Comment thread src/System.Management.Automation/engine/CommandBase.cs Outdated

ghost added Waiting on Author The PR was reviewed and requires changes or comments from the author before being accept and removed Review - Needed The PR is being reviewed labels Jun 15, 2021

Rob Holt (rjmholt) self-requested a review July 20, 2021 16:14

Rob Holt (rjmholt) reviewed Jul 20, 2021

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Rob Holt (rjmholt) added 6 commits July 20, 2021 11:34

Apply suggestions from code review

f8df366

Fix comments

7a0b264

Rework use-legacy test

72d3dc5

Use switch expression

256b2c4

Refactor ProcessStartInfo creation

25d26ef

Fix parameter ordering

5b9eaa6

Rob Holt (rjmholt) mentioned this pull request Jul 20, 2021

Make suggested changes to NativeArgPassing PR JamesWTruher/PowerShell-1#15

Merged

Rob Holt (rjmholt) and others added 2 commits July 20, 2021 14:21

Use static variable path

f2a99d1

Merge pull request #15 from rjmholt/NativeArgPassing002

a4d8858

Make suggested changes to NativeArgPassing PR

Rob Holt (rjmholt) enabled auto-merge (squash) July 20, 2021 22:29

Rob Holt (rjmholt) changed the title ~~Native argument passing adjustments for Windows systems~~ Add a Windows mode for native commands that allows some commands to use legacy argument passing Jul 20, 2021

Rob Holt (rjmholt) approved these changes Jul 20, 2021

View reviewed changes

Rob Holt (rjmholt) disabled auto-merge July 20, 2021 22:30

Rob Holt (rjmholt) enabled auto-merge (squash) July 20, 2021 22:30

Rob Holt (rjmholt) merged commit ac762c1 into PowerShell:master Jul 20, 2021

Aditya Patwardhan (adityapatwardhan) added the CL-Engine Indicates that a PR should be marked as an engine change in the Change Log label Jul 21, 2021

Aditya Patwardhan (adityapatwardhan) added this to the 7.2.0-preview.8 milestone Jul 21, 2021

Joseph Petersen (jetersen) mentioned this pull request Jul 23, 2021

Windows mangles double quotes within single quotes in arguments cli/cli#3425

Open

Sean Wheeler (sdwheeler) mentioned this pull request Aug 3, 2021

Add a Windows mode to $PSNativeCommandArgumentPassing that allows some commands to use legacy argument passing MicrosoftDocs/PowerShell-Docs#7907

Closed

Luiz (Luiz-Monad) mentioned this pull request Oct 29, 2022

PSNativeCmdlet class - wrapper for native applications #13428

Closed

coderabbitai Bot mentioned this pull request Apr 24, 2026

feat(desktop): Windows x64 build and runtime support (#273) MocA-Love/superset#423

Merged

15 tasks

Thatgfsj (Thatgfsj) pushed a commit to Thatgfsj/PowerShell that referenced this pull request Aug 6, 2026

Add a Windows mode for native commands that allows some commands to u…

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…se legacy argument passing (PowerShell#15408)

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