Power shell write-progress

Hi Jcam,

When deploying through Microsoft Configuration Manager Software Center, the system only checks whether the installer process has finished, not what it displays on screen. The newer MATLAB installer launches another process in the background and exits early, so Software Center thinks the installation failed even though it is still running. The practical fix is to run the installer through a small PowerShell wrapper that forces the system to wait until the real installation process finishes using Start-Process -Wait. This way Software Center will keep showing the installation as “in progress” until MATLAB actually completes. Progress bars like Write-Progress usually will not appear in Software Center, so the best approach is simply making the deployment wait correctly.

If you find it's helpful, pleave give it a thump up or accept the answer, very much appreciate it :)

Harry.

Use Write-Progress in a wrapper script that launches the MATLAB installer and periodically updates the progress bar while the installer runs. Write-Progress only shows something while the PowerShell script itself is running, so the wrapper must stay active until setup finishes.

Example pattern:

$ProgressPreference = 'Continue'   # Ensure progress is shown

# Start MATLAB installer in background
$process = Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Path\to\matlab_installer.exe" `
    -ArgumentList "<your arguments>" `
    -PassThru -WindowStyle Hidden

$activity = "Installing MATLAB"
$status   = "MATLAB setup is running. Do not close this window."

while (-not $process.HasExited) {
    # If no real percentage is available, use an indeterminate style
    Write-Progress -Activity $activity -Status $status -PercentComplete 0
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
}

# Final update when done
Write-Progress -Activity $activity -Status "Installation complete." -PercentComplete 100

Key points:

1. Write-Progress basics
   • -Activity is the main text line (what is happening).
   • -Status is the secondary text line (more detail).
   • -PercentComplete is an integer 0–100.
   • If the progress bar does not appear, ensure $ProgressPreference is not set to SilentlyContinue.
2. Handling unknown duration
   • If the MATLAB installer does not expose progress, keep -PercentComplete 0 (indeterminate) and just update -Status periodically.
   • Optionally, add a spinner or elapsed time in -Status to show that work is ongoing.
3. Returning success to Software Center
   • The wrapper script should exit with the installer’s exit code so Software Center reports success/failure correctly:

$process.WaitForExit()
$exitCode = $process.ExitCode
Write-Progress -Activity $activity -Status "Installation complete." -PercentComplete 100
exit $exitCode

4. Multiple steps (optional)
   • If there are multiple phases (e.g., pre-checks, install, post-config), use different -Activity or -Status messages and adjust -PercentComplete to reflect rough stages (e.g., 0–20–80–100).
5. PowerShell 7+ progress style (optional)
   • In PowerShell 7.2+, progress rendering can be tuned with $PSStyle.Progress:

$PSStyle.Progress.View = 'Classic'   # or 'Minimal'
$PSStyle.Progress.MaxWidth = 120

This wrapper can be the program that Software Center runs. The user then sees a PowerShell progress bar while MATLAB installs in the background, and Software Center gets the correct final result.

References:

• Write-Progress
• Writing Progress across multiple threads with ForEach-Object -Parallel
• Using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit