Prerequisites

• Write a descriptive title.
• Make sure you are able to repro it on thelatest released version
• Search the existing issues.
• Refer to theFAQ.
• Refer toDifferences between Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell.

Steps to reproduce

Note: This is an edge case; if correcting the inconsistency discussed below is deemed not worth the effort, it should at least be documented.

• On Windows, GUI-subsystem applications execute asynchronously by default.
• Piping (|) them to another command makes the call synchronous and also populates$LASTEXITCODE
• By contrast, applying aredirection (>) surprisingly doesnot do that.

The piping technique is a useful (albeit obscure) shortcut to invoking GUI applications synchronously (albeit limited to GUI applications that do not delegate to another process on startup);>$null would make it more concise.

msiexec.exe|Out-Null"`$LASTEXITCODE after:$LASTEXITCODE"$global:LASTEXITCODE=0msiexec.exe>$null"`$LASTEXITCODE after:$LASTEXITCODE"

Expected behavior

Both invocations ofmsiexec.exe should be synchronous (blocking) and populate$LASTEXITCODE

Actual behavior

Only the first invocation behaves as expected.

Error details

Environment data

PowerShell7.6.0-preview.5 on Windows.

Visuals

No response