Set the window title of a CMD/WINRS prompt

Question

I'm creating some PowerShell code to open a command prompt on a remote machine. This works fine but I can't seem to find a way to set the title of that window, so you can see that you're connected to the remote client.

$ComputerName = 'HostName'

Start-Process 'winrs' -ArgumentList "/r:$ComputerName.domain.net cmd /noprofile /noecho"

I've tried by adding the well known TITLE $ComputerName at the end, but that doesn't change anything. If setting the title isn't possible, it would be nice to have a comment in the window to see the host name you are connected to.

Answer 1

The title of a PowerShell window can be changed via the $Host variable:

$ComputerName = 'HostName'

$Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = $ComputerName

Start-Process 'winrs' -ArgumentList "/r:$ComputerName.domain.net cmd /noprofile /noecho"

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Edit: If spawning a new window is not a hard requirement you could change the title of the PowerShell window as described above and run winrs inline (using the call operator &):

$ComputerName = 'HostName'
$Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = $ComputerName
& winrs /r:$ComputerName.domain.net cmd /noprofile /noecho

Otherwise you could spawn a new PowerShell window and run the above in that window:

$ComputerName = 'HostName'
Start-Process 'powershell.exe' -ArgumentList "&{`$Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = '$ComputerName'; & winrs /r:$ComputerName.domain.net cmd /noprofile /noecho}"

Note that in this case you must escape the $ in $Host to prevent premature expansion of that variable (you want it expanded in the child process, not in the parent).

Answer 2

This isn't really a powershell question, since it's more around "How do I manipulate a window started with WinRS?".

That being said, it doesn't seem you can change the title of a window owned by WinRS at all - since even running "Title " manually in the window it creates does nothing. But you could get it to post a comment easily enough by changing your start up command to :

Start-Process 'winrs' -ArgumentList "/r:$ComputerName.domain.net cmd /noprofile /noecho /k echo $ComputerName"

Hope that helps.