Powershell - Launching outlook 2016 with switch commands with a hidden window

Question

I'm working on an automaton script for use by our end users in SCCM. Everything is working the way i want it to except for the section for launching outlook with the /cleanviews switch in a hidden window.

Current script section

$path = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16"

$path2 = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16"

Test-path $path
if($True){

Start-Process -workingdirectory $path OUTLOOK.EXE /cleanviews -WindowStyle Hidden -ErrorAction Ignore}

Else {
Start-Process -workingdirectory $path2 OUTLOOK.EXE /cleanviews -WindowStyle Hidden -ErrorAction Ignore}

Start-Sleep -s 15

get-process OUTLOOK -ErrorAction ignore | stop-process

Start-Sleep -s 5

I've also tried removing the -working directory portion, and moving -windowstyle from the end to directly after start-process. So far the application is launching in a normal window

There is another script section after this portion and the reason i don't want our users to see the second window during the cleanviews switch is because they could easily freak out with it closing again and or interrupt the script.

suggestions?

colsw colsw · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-25T22:49:13

just to start, the

Test-path $path
if($True){}

bit makes no sense and will always return true, i'm assuming this was put in for testing?

Second, some applications will ignore the -WindowStyle part, you can however do this:

Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\OUTLOOK.EXE"

$Win32ShowWindowAsync = Add-Type –memberDefinition @” 
    [DllImport("user32.dll")] 
    public static extern bool ShowWindowAsync(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow); 
“@ -name “Win32ShowWindowAsync” -namespace Win32Functions –PassThru

$Show = 1 ; $Hide = 0 ; $TimeOut = 0
do{
    Get-Process 'outlook' | % {
        $Hidden = $Win32ShowWindowAsync::ShowWindowAsync($_.MainWindowHandle,$Hide)
    }
    Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 100
    $TimeOut++
} while (!$Hidden -or $TimeOut -gt 100)

which is pretty ugly, but PowerShell doesn't have a native way to hide an existing process window.

Powershell - Launching outlook 2016 with switch commands with a hidden window

1 Answers