How do I run a Windows installer and get a succeed/fail value in PowerShell?

Question

I would like to install a set of applications: .NET 4, IIS 7 PowerShell snap-ins, ASP.NET MVC 3, etc. How do I get the applications to install and return a value that determines

Answer 1

msi's can also be installed using msiexec.exe, msu's can be installed using wusa.exe, both have a /quiet switch, /norestart and /forcerestart switches and a /log option for logging (specify the file name).

You can read more about the options if you call them with /?

Note: wusa fails silently when they fail, so you have to check the log file or eventlog to determine success.

Answer 2

These answers all seem either overly complicated or not complete enough. Running an installer in the PowerShell console has a few problems. An MSI is run in the Windows subsystem, so you can't just invoke them (Invoke-Expression or &). Some people claim to get those commands to work by piping to Out-Null or Out-Host, but I have not observed that to work.

The method that works for me is Start-Process with the silent installation parameters to msiexec.

$list = 
@(
    "/I `"$msi`"",                     # Install this MSI
    "/QN",                             # Quietly, without a UI
    "/L*V `"$ENV:TEMP\$name.log`""     # Verbose output to this log
)

Start-Process -FilePath "msiexec" -ArgumentList $list -Wait

You can get the exit code from the Start-Process command and inspect it for pass/fail values. (and here is the exit code reference)

$p = Start-Process -FilePath "msiexec" -ArgumentList $list -Wait -PassThru

if($p.ExitCode -ne 0)
{
    throw "Installation process returned error code: $($p.ExitCode)"
}

Answer 3

Depends. MSIs can be installed using WMI. For exes and other methods, you can use Start-Process and check the Process ExitCode.

Answer 4

I have implemented exactly what you are looking for at my current project. We need to automate deployment and instillation of n number of apps across multiple environments and datacenters. These scripts are slightly modified from the original version for simplicity sake since my complete code is reaching 1000 lines but the core functionality is intact. I hope this does what you are asking for.

This PS function pulls all the apps from the registry (what add/remove programs reads from) and then search's for the supplied app name and display version. In my code (PSM1) I run this function before I install to whether or not it is their and then afterword’s to verify that it got installed…. All this can be wrapped in one master function to manager flow control.

function Confirm-AppInstall{
param($AppName,$AppVersion)
$Apps = Get-ItemProperty Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*|?{$_.DisplayName -ne $Null}|?{$_.DisplayName -ne ""}

$Apps += Get-ItemProperty Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*|?{$_.DisplayName -ne $Null}|?{$_.DisplayName -ne ""}

$Installed = $Apps|?{$_.DisplayName -eq ""}|?{$_.DisplayVersion -eq ""}|select -First 1
if($Installed -ne $null){return $true}else{return $false}
}

This PS function will load a txt file that has the install commands prepopulated (one command per line). and run each line indivaduly and wait for the install to complete before moving on to the next.

function Install-Application{
param($InstallList = "C:\Install_Apps_CMDS.txt")

$list = gc -Path $InstallList
foreach ($Command in $list){
    Write-Output ("[{0}]{1}"  -f (Get-Date -Format G),$call)
    #Make install process wait for exit before continuing.
    $p = [diagnostics.process]::Start("powershell.exe","-NoProfile -NoLogo -Command $Command")
    $p.WaitForExit()
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 2
    #Searches for the installer exe or msi that was directly opened by powershell and gets the process id.
    $ProcessID = (gwmi -Query ("select ProcessId from Win32_Process WHERE ParentProcessID = {0} AND Name = '{1}'" -f $p.Id,$ParentProcessFile)|select ProcessId).ProcessId
    #waits for the exe or msi to finish installing
    while ( (Get-Process -Id $ProcessID -ea 0) -ne $null){
        Start-Sleep -Seconds 2
        $ElapsedTime = [int](New-TimeSpan -Start $P.StartTime -End (Get-Date)|select TotalSeconds).TotalSeconds
        #install times out after 1000 seconds so it dosent just sit their forever this can be changed 
        if(2000 -lt $ElapsedTime){
            Write-Output ('[{0}] The application "{1}" timed out during instilation and was forcfully exited after {2} seconds.'  -f (Get-Date -Format G),$App.Name,(([int]$App.InstallTimeOut) * 60))
            break
        }
    }
    #clean up any old or hung install proccess that should not be running at this point.
    Stop-Process -Name $ParentProcessName -ea 0 -Force
    Stop-Process -Name msiexec -ea 0 -Force
    }
}

The TXT file should be formatted as such... you will need to do you research on how to each app needs to be installed. a good resource is appdeploy.com

C:\Install.exe /q
C:\install.msi /qn TRANSFORMS='C:\transform.mst'
C:\install2.msi /qn /norestart
C:\install3.exe /quiet

Let me know if there are any errors I had to modify my existing code to remove the proprietary values and make this a little more simplistic. I am pulling my values from a custom XML answer sheet. But this code should work as I have supplied it.

If you would like for me to discuss more about my implementation let me know and i can make a more detailed explanation and also add more of the supporting functions that I have implemented.