Hide the PowerShell Window

I have a number of scripts I run in the desktop environment that are triggered using scheduled tasks.  These scripts run in the user context.  An unfortunate problem with PowerShell is that it displays a window when it runs, even if it is running as a batch job and no user input or output is involved.  I don't want my end users seeing this window (a black command window), so have tried a number of things and have found two ways to hide it.  Neither of these are ideal, it would be nice to hide this window using PowerShell itself but I haven't found a way to do that.

Method One
This is the method I've used for some time, though I think that the second method below might be the better solution as it uses native tools available in Windows, where this solution requires a third party tool.

Download Hidden Start

Once you have the utility, you can use it like this to hide a running PowerShell script:

%SystemDir%\Scripts\hstart.exe /NOCONSOLE /SILENT "POWERSHELL.EXE -FILE %SystemDir%\Scripts\MyScript.ps1"

Warning:  Some security software suites will detect this tool as 'bad' so if you have problems with it, check you security software logs to see if the utility is being treated as malware.

Update: While writing this post I found the Hidden Start now requires a license for commercial use. I'm pretty sure this was a free tool in the past when I've downloaded it.  This will rule it out for a lot of you I'm sure.

Method Two
This method uses a vbScript to call the PowerShell script as a hidden window. This is not sophisticated but does work. There are a number of ways to do this, but the following little script is quiet cute as you can reuse this code and just pass a new script to it on the command line. The scheduled task would run something like this:

cscript.exe %SystemDrive%\Scripts\RunPowerShellScriptHidden.vbs %SystemDrive%\Scripts\MyScript.ps1

' ----------------------------------------------------------------------

' 
' Purpose:  Prompts end user to contact the Service Desk and opens IE to the
'           Service Desk home page
' 
' Usage : cscript.exe RunPowerShellScriptHidden.vbs mypath\myscript.ps1
' 
' Version 1.0
' 
' Maintenance History
' ----------------------------------------------------------------------
' Version   -    Date      -    Change           -       Author
' ----------------------------------------------------------------------
' 1.0            25/06/12       Script Created           justanothertechnicalblog
' 
' 


Option Explicit

'Variables
Dim oShell, ScriptName, appCmd

' Read target script path from command line argument or echo usage details if arguments are wrong
If WScript.Arguments.Count = 1 Then
ScriptName = WScript.Arguments.Item(0)
Else
Wscript.Echo "Usage: RunPowerShellScriptHidden path\powershellscript"
Wscript.Quit
End If


'Create objects
Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

' Build the command line
appCmd = "PowerShell.exe -file " + ScriptName 

'Run the PowerShell script now
oShell.Run appCmd, 0, false