The following script demonstrates an issue I'm experiencing after moving from PowerShell v4 to v5.1. I make extensive use of Start-Process redirecting StandardError to a file, if this file contains data after execution I can read the file to see what the issue was.

However, with v5.1 when the launched PowerShell process starts, it makes use of progress output which is on the error stream, so this is redirected to the error file.

In previous versions of PowerShell this did not happen.

The output to the script below is as follows:

Powershell v4
------------------
WARNING: Standard Error
WARNING: Standard Out
hello world!

Powershell v5.1
---------------------
WARNING: Standard Error

SourceId Record
-------- ------
1 parent = -1 id = 0 act = Preparing modules for first use. stat = cur = pct = -1 sec = -1 type = Completed
hello world!

WARNING: Standard Out
hello world!

# ------------------------------------- Script Start

$outfile = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()
$errorfile = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()

$command = "write-host 'hello world!'"
$encodedCommand = [Convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetBytes($command))
$argumentList = @(
"-NoLogo",
"-NonInteractive",
"-NoProfile",
"-EncodedCommand",
$encodedCommand
)

Start-Process powershell `
-argumentlist $argumentList `
-PassThru `
-wait `
-RedirectStandardOut $outfile `
-NoNewWindow `
-RedirectStandardError $errorfile | Out-Null

Write-Warning "Standard Error"
try {
Import-Clixml $errorfile | Out-Host
}
catch {
Get-Content $errorfile
}

Write-Warning "Standard Out"
Get-Content $outfile

$outfile, $errorfile | Remove-item

Three folders; d1, d2, d3, with files test.txt and test.mp3 in in d1 and d3.

'-Include *d1*' includes only content from d1. Would expect '-Exclude *d1*' to include the inverse, but it has no effect, it returns all data.

unless it's run after -Include.

So '-Include *d1* -Exclude *d1*' returns nothing, as expected.

Exclude only works as it applies to a file name, not a path.

So '-Exclude *.txt' will exclude all files '*.txt' as expected.

The syntax usage in the help file is identical for both parameters.

Please fix -Exclude parameter so that it works on the Path consistently, as the documentation states it should.

admit it, PS is ugly. with the multitudes of loops we have to jump thru to get a desired result, it would be better if you could provide command line switches for common tasks.

for example, in a select statement, how do you prevent the header from appearing in the output? would be nice if could just do "select -NoHeader …." but you can't.

that is just one example where I spent 30 minutes looking for a way to display only without headers in a "select" statement. a lot of our searches involves either an object has or has not so it would really be appreciated if those "has or has not" could be simplified into command line switches as mentioned above.

just image if "Export-CSV" does not have a switche "-NoTypeInformation" and you'll know exactly what the problem is.

Let's take this simple loop:

PS C:\temp> for ($a=0; $a -lt 2; $a++ ) {
>> get-date;
>> Write-Host "Hello world!";
>> Get-ChildItem | ft -a;
>> sleep 1
>> }

18 juillet 2018 14:54:47
Hello world!

Directory: C:\temp

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 2018-07-18 14:49 3698 test.txt

Hello world!
18 juillet 2018 14:54:48

Directory: C:\temp

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 2018-07-18 14:49 3698 test.txt

As you can see, "Get-Date" and "Hello world!" gets inverted.

If we remove "ft -a" everything is executed as it should.

Using While ($true) { ... } does the exact same thing.

Tested on Powershell 4 and 5 on fully upgraded machines.

I am running a powershell script in the Post-Build event in Visual Studio (VS). Here is a simplified version of the command command

powershell -ExecutionPolicy remotesigned -File "%SampleDir%\update.ps1" "$(ProjectDir)" "$(TargetName)" "$(TargetExt)" "$(Configuration)"

I want you to understand that I have no control of these macro's $(ProjectDir) ... VS will fill these in.

To simplify things I've eliminated VS. Here is a script that simply echo's the input given to it. This will show the problem copy the below script to a file called echo-args.ps1
#===================================
"The number of parameters passed in is $($Args.Count)"
$i = 0
foreach ($arg in $Args) { echo "The $i parameter is $arg"; $i++ }
#===================================

Whether the script is invoked as

## works as expected
1) & "$env:SampleDir\echo-args.ps1" "D:\Users\robertla\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Samples\Debug_Utilities\" "Debug Utilities" ".dll" "Debug"

or the below invocation which is how it needs to be invoked inside of the VS Post-Build event environment
## doesn't handle spaces correctly
2) powershell -ExecutionPolicy remotesigned -File "$env:SampleDir\echo-args.ps1" "D:\Users\robertla\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Samples\Debug_Utilities\" "Debug Utilities" ".dll" "Debug"

This is the output from 2) which you can see is incorrect
The number of parameters passed in is 2
The 0 parameter is D:\Users\robertla\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Samples\Debug_Utilities" Debug
The 1 parameter is Utilities .dll Debug

I wanted to show you that the output of 1) is not the same as the output of 2). However VS will spawn CMD.EXE and pass in the command line provided in the Post-Build event. This test really needs to be done in NT's shell.

Replace $env:SampleDir with %SampleDir% and rerun the 2) in CMD.EXE.

You should also checkout the behavior when single quotes are used rather than double quotes. Both are incorrect but in different ways

Hello, I have noticed some strange behavior with Powershell when run in a remote session, it seems as if there is a memory leak with write-progress when run in a remote session.

Take the following code for example:

$MaxVal = 10000000

for ($x=1;$x -le $MaxVal;$x++)
{
Write-Progress -Activity "Writing a progress event" -PercentComplete ($x / $MaxVal * 100) -Status "$($x / $MaxVal * 100)% complete"
}

If I run this locally, powershell.exe runs normally and does not take up much memory.

However, if I run it on the same computer from a remote session (as in, I do an enter-psesssion -computername computer).

The memory on powershell.exe keeps going up until it eventually crashes the process.

Is there something I am doing wrong or is this a bug within powershell? I noticed it because I have a long running script that I use write-progress in and it was running fine whenever it runs locally, but calling it in a powershell session kept hanging the script and it would never complete. If I just remove all the calls to write-progress from the script, it runs fine in a remote session.