Powershell to display Regsvr32 result in console instead of dialog

Question

I've searched but did not find any answer.
The task is register one dll using Powershell ps1, followed by other lines of scripts. I don't want to be interrupted by the dialog, so added the /s parameter. But now the result information is ignored, no matter succeed or fail. I want the result displayed in console. But how?

Answer 1

Launch regsvr32.exe /s with Start-Process -PassThru and inspect the ExitCode property:

$regsvrp = Start-Process regsvr32.exe -ArgumentList "/s C:\path\to\your.dll" -PassThru
$regsvrp.WaitForExit(5000) # Wait (up to) 5 seconds
if($regsvrp.ExitCode -ne 0)
{
    Write-Warning "regsvr32 exited with error $($regsvrp.ExitCode)"
}

Answer 2

Here is a more complete full powershell cmdlet with pipeline support.

function Register-Dll
{
    <#
    .SYNOPSIS
        A function that uses the utility regsvr32.exe utility to register a file
    .PARAMETER Path
        The file path
    .PARAMETER Unregister
        when specified, unregisters instead of registers
    #>
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
        [ValidateScript({ Test-Path -Path $_ -PathType 'Leaf' })]       
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true,ValueFromPipeLineByPropertyName=$true)]
        [Alias("FullName")]
        [string[]]$Path,
        [Alias("u")]
        [switch]$Unregister
        )
    begin {
        if ($Unregister)
        {
            $regflag = "-u "
        }
        else
        {
            $regflag = ""
        }
        [int]$NumFailed=0
        $RegExitCodes = @{
            0="SUCCESS";
            1="FAIL_ARGS - Invalid Argument";
            2="FAIL_OLE - OleInitialize Failed";
            3="FAIL_LOAD - LoadLibrary Failed";
            4="FAIL_ENTRY - GetProcAddress failed";
            5="FAIL_REG - DllRegisterServer or DllUnregisterServer failed.";
        }
    }
    process {
        foreach ($p in $path)
        {
            try
            {
                $regsvrp = Start-Process regsvr32.exe -ArgumentList "/s $regflag <code>$p</code>" -Wait -NoNewWindow -PassThru

                if($regsvrp.ExitCode -ne 0)
                {
                    $NumFailed++
                    Write-Error "regsvr32 $regflag for $p exited with error $($regsvrp.ExitCode) - $($RegExitCodes[$regsvrp.ExitCode])"
                }
            } catch {
                $NumFailed++
                Write-Error $_.Exception.Message
            }
        }
    }
    end {
        if ($NumFailed -gt 0)
        {
            if ($Unregister)
            {
                $mode = "unregister"
            }
            else
            {
                $mode = "register"
            }
            Write-Error "Failed to $mode $NumFailed dll's, see previous errors for detail"
        }
    }
}

Usage:

function Register-MyAppDll
{

    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ParameterSetName="Both")]
        [switch]$ReRegister,
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ParameterSetName="UnregisterOnly")]
        [Alias("u")]
        [switch]$UnRegister,
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ParameterSetName="RegisterOnly")]
        [Alias("r")]
        [switch]$Register
    )


    $RegOptions = @()
    if ($UnRegister -or $ReRegister) { $RegOptions += @{Unregister=$true} }
    if ($Register -or $ReRegister) { $RegOptions += @{} }

    $dlltoregister = Get-ChildItem "C:\MyApp\bin" -Filter *.dll | where {$_ -notmatch '^interop'}

    foreach ($RegOpt in $RegOptions)
    {
        $dlltoregister | Register-Dll @RegOpt
    }

}


Register-MyAppDll -UnRegister
Register-MyAppDll -Register
Register-MyAppDll -ReRegister 

Enjoy :)

Answer 3

Thank you Justin! I'm using this script and it works great.

There seems to be a typo in the following line of code:

$regsvrp = Start-Process regsvr32.exe -ArgumentList "/s $regflag <code>$p</code>" -Wait -NoNewWindow -PassThru

The code tag shoudn't be there. I changed it to the following with added escaped double quotes around path to support spaces in paths:

$regsvrp = Start-Process regsvr32.exe -ArgumentList "/s $regflag `"$p`"" -Wait -NoNewWindow -PassThru 

Answer 4

& regsvr32.exe /s your.dll | Out-Null

if (-Not($?)) { 
   Write-Error "failed: $LASTEXITCODE" 
}

works for me.

From https://ss64.com/ps/out-null.html:

When running an external Windows .EXE executable from a PowerShell script, by default the script will not wait and will immediately continue to the next command. Piping the command to out-null or out-default will force PowerShell to wait for the process to exit before continuing.