youtube-dl wrapper for Windows users
Given that the average computer user is not familiar with the
command line, and the fact that youtube-dl is an
awesome command line tool, why not build something to help our
friends on their Windows machines? Something similar to the solution put together
for Mac users maybe...
This little tool downloads and installs 7-Zip and a Microsoft runtime library needed by youtube-dl and then fetches ffmpeg (every two weeks) and youtube-dl (daily) itself, before asking for settings and firing up the downloader.
MS PowerShell is quite usable and handy,
except the fact that a dirty trick is needed when system settings won't
allow any unknown scripts to be run: create a shortcut
to the System's powershell.exe, and start it with the
following as -command argument:
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process;
.\script.ps1
I noticed that my freshly created shortcut was about the size of my 50+ lines of script, that this LNK file somehow also contained my system's name and, after a little research, realized what a monstrosity this file format actually is (the fun starts at page 10). Who knew what complexity shortcuts could lead to!