Control a DLL using Powershell

Question

Hello I’m looking for some guidance on how I would be able to control a DLL file using a PowerShell script or what is the best way to achieve this. The DLL when run does nothing until it receives a particular value. I believe the only values it can receive are 0 or 1 and depending on the value it receives it will perform particular function in the application which runs in a web browser. I’m fairly new to learning and using PowerShell so any help would be great.

Thanks
Calum

Answer 1

A DLL does nothing by itself. It contains code that usually performs some common function, but without a process that uses that code it's more or less inert.

So, for you to "control" it you have to supply the code that asks the DLL's code to run. That "control" is usually accomplished by loading the DLL and then calling a function that the DLL exposes. You can use the PowerShell "Add-Type" cmdlet to do this.

Here's a longer explanation: use-powershell-to-interact-with-the-windows-api-part-1

Answer 2

Thanks for that, after some investigation I've found that the only value that should be passed to the DLL should be 0, this would shutdown the application gracefully and allowed the server to be patched. Once the script it created it will ran as a scheduled task every month.

Answer 3

The software is for voice recording IP telephony calls, it is manually manged through a web interface where I can manually shut down or restart the software. I'll see if I can any where with the software vendor support team. Thanks for your input so far.