How to get PowerShell to wait for Invoke-Item completion?

Question

How do I get PowerShell to wait until the Invoke-Item call has finished? I'm invoking a non-executable item, so I need to use Invoke-Item to open it.

Answer 1

Unfortunately you can't by using the Invoke-Item Commandlet directly. This command let has a void return type and no options that allow for a wait.

The best option available is to define your own function which wraps the Process API like so

function Invoke-Command() {
    param ( [string]$program = $(throw "Please specify a program" ),
            [string]$argumentString = "",
            [switch]$waitForExit )

    $psi = new-object "Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo"
    $psi.FileName = $program 
    $psi.Arguments = $argumentString
    $proc = [Diagnostics.Process]::Start($psi)
    if ( $waitForExit ) {
        $proc.WaitForExit();
    }
}

Answer 2

Just use Start-Process -wait, for example Start-Process -wait c:\image.jpg. That should work in the same way as the one by Jared.

Answer 3

Pipe your command to Out-Null.