Cannot run powershell command via command prompt

Question

I'm attempting to check the RelayForAuth setting for my Windows SMTP Server using the below commands. Powershell appears to display the correct result 'False' but when running the same command via command prompt, it generates an error:

Powershell Example:

([ADSI]"IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1".RelayForAuth -like "*0*")

Output:

False

Command Prompt Example:

powershell -command "([ADSI]"IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1".RelayForAuth -like "*0*")"

Output:

At line:1 char:8
+ ([ADSI]IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1.RelayForAuth -like *0*)
+        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unexpected token 'IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1.RelayForAuth' in expression or 
statement.
At line:1 char:8
+ ([ADSI]IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1.RelayForAuth -like *0*)
+        ~
Missing closing ')' in expression.
At line:1 char:56
+ ([ADSI]IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1.RelayForAuth -like *0*)
+                                                        ~
Unexpected token ')' in expression or statement.
+ CategoryInfo          : ParserError: (:) [], 
ParentContainsErrorRecordException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnexpectedToken

Answer 1

Since you're nesting (embedding) " chars. - to be passed verbatim to PowerShell - inside the syntactic outer double-quoting ("..."), you must escape those nested " chars.

Even though PowerShell-internally ` serves as the escape character, calling the PowerShell CLI (powershell.exe / pwsh) from the outside (cmd.exe) requires \-escaping of ":

# Embedded " chars. must be \-escaped
powershell -command "([ADSI]\"IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1\").RelayForAuth -like \"*0*\""

Note that you can avoid the need for this escaping if you single-quote the strings inside the overall "..." string. While this works fine in your case, given that your strings have only verbatim content, note that this is generally only an option if no string interpolation is required:

# Embedded strings use '...' -> no escaping needed.
powershell -command "([ADSI]'IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1').RelayForAuth -like '*0*'"

Caveat: Using single-quoting to enclose the overall command ('...') does not work as expected from cmd.exe: the latter doesn't recognize these as quoting, and PowerShell simply interprets the string as using its syntax for a verbatim string, and therefore simply prints the contents of the string.

For more information, see this answer.