Silent install of IBM Rational Doors 9.7 with Powershell

I am trying to perform a silent install of IBM Rational Doors 9.7 as explained here.

I want to perform the install with Powershell. I am constructing the arguments to Start-Process to run the installer like this:

$doors97installArgs = '/s /v"/l*v"install.log" /qn INSTALLDIR="C:\Program Files\IBM\Rational\DOORS\9.7.2.3\" CLIENTDATA="36990@<redacted>" LAPAGREE="Yes" TLLICENSESERVER="27200@<redacted>" -wait -verb open'

For Start-Process I am using this:

Start-Process -WorkingDirectory $doors97location -FilePath $doors97setupFullPath -ArgumentList $doors97installArgs

The values in $doors97location and $doors97setupFullPath evaluate correctly.

When Start-Process runs it immediately exits with no error message. What am I doing wrong?

Solution

There are two problems with your command:

You mistakenly included -wait and -verb open inside the argument-list string passed to Start-Process.
- Note that -Verb Open is redundant, as it is implied. (-Verb is typically only used with RunAs, to request execution _with elevation).
The argument-list string is broken in that the embedded " chars. inside /v"..." aren't escaped.

However, since your intent is to run synchronously (Start-Process -Wait), for simplicity I suggest calling via cmd /c instead, which is implicitly synchronous while giving you the same control over the quoting on the resulting process command lines as with Start-Process; additionally, the installer process' exit code will be reflected in the automatic $LASTEXITCODE variable afterwards.

Based on the docs you link to, try the following (using an expandable here-string to make use of embedded quotes easier):

# Call the installer synchronously.
# 
cmd /c @"
cd /d "$doors97location"
"$doors97setupFullPath" /s /v"/l*v\"install.log\" /qn INSTALLDIR=\"C:\Program Files\IBM\Rational\DOORS\9.7.2.3\" CLIENTDATA=\"36990@<redacted>\" LAPAGREE=\"Yes\" TLLICENSESERVER=\"27200@<redacted>\""
"@  # NOTE: This closing delimiter must be *at the very start* of the line.

After this call, $LASTEXITCODE contains the installer's exit code.