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

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

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

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.