Can a Batch script know if it's called from PowerShell?

Question

Is there any way a batch script can know if it's called from PowerShell (without extra parameters feeded)?

Need something like..

if (%THIS_BATCH_CALLED_FROM_POWERSHELL%)
    ... warn the user or drop back to powershell to execute the proper instructions...

Question related with this question - virtualenv-in-powershell.

Answer 1

You could add a default warning in the script and pass it a flag that tells it not to show the warning. When you call it from power shell pass it that flag.

Answer 2

In my Powershell environment (a PS 2.0 CTP), I seem to have an environment variable PSMODULEPATH which is not set by the normal command line environment, but still exists when Powershell has a child CMD.exe shell.

I think you might be able to "reliably enough" check for the existence of PSMODULEPATH in your batch script.

Answer 3

You could use a tool like "tlist.exe /t" or this one to display the PIDs of the current process and all parent processes. You could check each one of those PIDs to see if any correspond to PowerShell.exe.