PS Fab:\\> PowerShell Blog - Wait for an Executable to finish

Again and again, one good thing with IT is that you have million ways to do the same thing. That’s right with PowerShell too.
This example is 3 ways to run an executable and wait for its completion before doing something else. Could be usefull to launch an msi setup and wait before tuning the freshly installed software.

Start-Process -Wait

Write-Host "1. Run the .NET framework installer and wait for its completion... (Start-Process -Wait)" -ForegroundColor Yellow
$process="dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe"
$args="/q /norestart"

Start-Process $process -ArgumentList $args -Wait
Write-Host "`nProcess `"$process`" has been executed and is now stopped." -ForegroundColor DarkGreen

Call operator (&)

Write-Host "2. Run the .NET framework installer and wait for its completion... (Call operator &)" -ForegroundColor Yellow
$process="dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe"
$args="/q /norestart"

&$process $args | echo "Waiting"
Write-Host "`nProcess `"$process`" has been executed and is now stopped." -ForegroundColor DarkGreen

Background Job

Write-Host "3. Run the .NET framework installer and wait for its completion... (Background Job)" -ForegroundColor Yellow
$process="dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe"
$args="/q /norestart"

$job=Start-Job -filepath $process $args
Wait-Job $job
Receive-Job $job

Taylor Harris says:

19/04/2017 at 19:54

I can’t find a good way to do this honestly, but I have found a solution that works well enough for me:

Store a process from the Start-Process command in a variable and use a loop to sleep until it exits, like so:

$process = Start-Process -Filepath “Application.exe” -ArgumentList $psexecArgs -Credential $MyCredentials -WorkingDirectory “C:\” -PassThru

do {start-sleep -Milliseconds 500}
until ($process.HasExited)

Using this method you get the benefit of the -Credential parameter with Start-Process, but the script will also wait until the process that launched exits. You must include the -PassThru parameter though for it to return the process object to be stored in the variable.

Taylor Harris says:
19/04/2017 at 19:58
I meant to add, Start-Process -Wait has NEVER worked for me. It would be nice if it did

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