Get-WindowsUpdateLog stream re-direction

Question

Has anyone noticed how the Get-WindowsUpdateLog cmdlet cannot be redirected to any streams?

Furthermore, storing the output into a variable, piping it, or any type of re-direction leads to the cmdlet to only be executed.

Any help redirecting/silencing the output of this command would be appreciated.

What I've tried:

Get-WindowsUpdateLog | Out-Null

Get-WindowsUpdateLog > $null

$sink = Get-WindowsUpdateLog

Answer 1

Everything I could find failed to suppress the output of the CmdLet Get-WindowsUpdateLog. As you say, the displayed information in the console is not properly following the output streams as we know them in PowerShell.

The only workaround I found is using Jobs:

$Job = Start-Job -ScriptBlock {Get-WindowsUpdateLog}
$Job | Wait-Job | Remove-Job

This way all output is handled within the job and we don't retrieve the result. It's also unnecessary to retrieve it as the result is simply a text file placed in the -Path parameter.