I'm trying to understand how to write output to pipes and mailslots using PowerShell or batch scripting. Whenever I attempt to use redirection operators like '>' or '>>' to write to a pseudo file (\.pipe or \.mailslot), they don't work properly. In batch, named pipes seem to be the only ones that respond, while PowerShell throws an error: "FileStream was asked to open a device that was not a file." It's confusing because both mailslots and named pipes supposedly use CreateFile and WriteFile functions in the back end. My ultimate aim is to send the output of any command into a mailslot or something equivalent, so I can retrieve it from another application. Additionally, when trying to write to a named pipe in PowerShell, I encounter the error "All pipe instances are busy." I suspect this might be because PowerShell invokes CreateFile twice, and the first call doesn't get used for writing. Any insights on how to work around these issues?
1 Answer
You might want to check that you're not trying to use remote mailslots unnecessarily since they can be deprecated. If you need to temporarily re-enable remote mailslots, you can use the PowerShell command: `Set-SmbClientConfiguration -EnableMailslots $true`. Just keep in mind that using mailslots isn't generally recommended anymore. Instead, look for alternative solutions to achieve your goal.
I think he's referring to local mailslots, not remote ones. The command won’t help if you’re working locally.