Silently executing a PowerShell script from WiX Hangs PowerShell

Question

Note: This question is also posted on the WiX Users mailing list.

I am trying to silently execute a PowerShell script from a WiX produced MSI. However, anytime I run the installer PowerShell hangs. Interestingly enough, according to the installer logs the PowerShell script appears to run successfully. Additionally, if I kill the PowerShell process via Task Manager, the installer cancels the installation and rolls back any changes.

PowerShell Script Contents

# @param website The website under which the module should be compiled and registered.
# @param name The name of the module to be registered.
# @param assembly The assembly name, version, culture and public key token to be compiled.
# @param assemblyType The fully qualified assemebly type to be registered.

param([string]$website = "website", [string]$name = "name", [string]$assembly = "assembly", [string]$assemblyType= "assemblyType")

import-module webadministration
add-webconfiguration /system.web/compilation/assemblies "IIS:\sites\$website" -Value @{assembly="$assembly"}
new-webmanagedmodule -Name "$name" -Type "$assemblyType" -PSPath "IIS:\sites\$website"

WiX Custom Action Contents : Attempt 1

My first attempt at this was to use the & special character to execute the script.

<CustomAction Id="RegisterHttpModulePSCmd"
              Property="RegisterHttpModulePowerShellProperty"
              Value="&quot;C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe&quot; &amp;'C:\Program Files (x86)\My Company\Scripts\register-httpmodule.ps1' -website 'Default Web Site' -name 'MyCustomModule' -assembly 'MyCompany.Product.Feature, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' -assemblyType 'MyCompany.Product.Feature.MyModule'"
              Execute="immediate" />

<CustomAction Id="RegisterHttpModulePowerShellProperty"
              BinaryKey="WixCA" 
              DllEntry="CAQuietExec64" 
              Execute="deferred"
              Return="check" 
              Impersonate="no" />

<InstallExecuteSequence>
   <Custom Action="RegisterHttpModulePSCmd" After="CostFinalize">NOT  Installed</Custom>
   <Custom Action="RegisterHttpModulePowerShellProperty" After="InstallFiles">NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>

WiX Custom Action Contents : Attempt 2

My second attempt was to use the -File argument to execute the script.

<CustomAction Id="RegisterHttpModulePSCmd"
              Property="RegisterHttpModulePowerShellProperty"       
              Value="&quot;C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe&quot; -NoLogo -NonInteractive -NoProfile -File &quot;C:\Program Files (x86)\My Company\Scripts\register-httpmodule.ps1&quot; -website &quot;Default Web Site&quot; -name &quot;MyCustomModule&quot; -assembly &quot;MyCompany.Product.Feature, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&quot; -assemblyType &quot;MyCompany.Product.Feature.MyModule&quot;"
              Execute="immediate" />

<CustomAction Id="RegisterHttpModulePowerShellProperty"
              BinaryKey="WixCA" 
              DllEntry="CAQuietExec64" 
              Execute="deferred"
              Return="check" 
              Impersonate="no" />

<InstallExecuteSequence>
   <Custom Action="RegisterHttpModulePSCmd" After="CostFinalize">NOT  Installed</Custom>
   <Custom Action="RegisterHttpModulePowerShellProperty" After="InstallFiles">NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>

Both approaches seem to work as they make modifications to the desired web.config file, however, both approaches hang PowerShell and thus the installer.

Additional Information

I modified the PowerShell script to print out the version information and not perform any other actions. The MSI log files then display the following:

MSI (s) (D4:78) [10:26:31:436]: Hello, I'm your 32bit Elevated custom action server.
CAQuietExec64:  
CAQuietExec64:  
CAQuietExec64:  Name             : ConsoleHost
CAQuietExec64:  Version          : 2.0
CAQuietExec64:  InstanceId       : 62b0349c-8d16-4bd1-94e5-d1fe54a9ff54
CAQuietExec64:  UI               : System.Management.Automation.Internal.Host.InternalHostUserI
CAQuietExec64:                     nterface
CAQuietExec64:  CurrentCulture   : en-US
CAQuietExec64:  CurrentUICulture : en-US
CAQuietExec64:  PrivateData      : Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost+ConsoleColorProxy
CAQuietExec64:  IsRunspacePushed : False
CAQuietExec64:  Runspace         : System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.LocalRunspace

It is at this point that the installer appears to have stopped as PowerShell does not exit. When I kill PowerShell manually with Task Manager the next few log messages are:

CAQuietExec64:  Error 0x80070001: Command line returned an error.
CAQuietExec64:  Error 0x80070001: CAQuietExec64 Failed CustomAction RegisterHttpModulePowerShellProperty returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox) Action ended 10:27:10: InstallFinalize. Return value 3.

How do I silently execute a PowerShell script from Wix without hanging PowerShell?

Answer 1

I saw several posts like this one while searching on an unrelated issue and found an answer. Bottom line: include the flag -InputFormat None in your command line.