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powershell should run ShellExecuteEx on STA thread #2969
Description
[Edited by Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw)]
PR #3281 adds support to ShellExecute in powershell core when it's running on Windows full SKUs. With that fix, Start-Process is able to run MSI in powershell core.
However, it's not a complete solution. It calls ShellExecuteEx directly in MTA thread instead of from STA thread as suggested in MSDN. Therefore, the current solution may not work for some shell extensions that require COM.
In .NET Core, managed threads are all eagerly initialized with MTA mode, so to call ShellExecuteEx from a STA thread, we need to create a native thread using CreateThread function and initialize COM with STA on that thread. In #3281, we are calling ShellExecuteEx directly on MTA thread, and it works for things like opening a folder in File Explorer, opening a file with the application that is associated with its extension in shell, opening URL in web browser and etc, but it's not guaranteed to work in all ShellExecution scenarios.
Will keep this issue open to track the "invoke-on-STA-thread" work.
PS:4> Start-Process .\PowerShell_6.0.0-alpha.17-win10-win2016-x64.msi -PassThru
NPM(K) PM(M) WS(M) CPU(s) Id SI ProcessName
------ ----- ----- ------ -- -- -----------
9 6.15 7.55 0.03 20092 3 msiexec
PS:5> $PSVersionTable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 6.0.0-alpha
WSManStackVersion 3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
PSEdition Core
GitCommitId v6.0.0-alpha.16-54-gc86a287726fe366895723dfcc7739f93038615ea
CLRVersion
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
BuildVersion 3.0.0.0
Activity
iSazonov commentedon Jan 6, 2017
I test this for .txt - it don't work too. Seems windows type associations don't work here at all.
mattpwhite commentedon Jan 11, 2017
The .NET Core version of System.Diagnostics.Process doesn't support using ShellExecute() to start processes. The .NET Framework version does and does so by default, with an alternate path that uses CreateProcess(). ShellExecute is what makes starting a file launch its associated executable (and other stuff like starting a URL launching your default browser). Have to imagine this is a breaking change for a lot of existing scripts (and that it's probably not trivial to fix).
https://referencesource.microsoft.com/#System/services/monitoring/system/diagnosticts/ProcessStartInfo.cs,48
https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/912cba3675a15718515417e7e9b46504c0303fbc/src/System.Diagnostics.Process/src/System/Diagnostics/ProcessStartInfo.Windows.cs#L85
daxian-dbw commentedon Mar 11, 2017
#3281 is to add ShellExecute support in powershell core.
It's not a complete solution however. It calls
ShellExecuteExdirectly in MTA thread instead of from STA thread as suggested in MSDN. Therefore, the current solution may not work for some shell extensions that require COM.In .NET Core, managed threads are all eagerly initialized with MTA mode, so to call
ShellExecuteExfrom a STA thread, we need to create a native thread usingCreateThreadfunction and initialize COM with STA on that thread. In #3281, we are callingShellExecuteExdirectly on MTA thread, and it works for things like opening a folder in File Explorer, opening a file with the application that is associated with its extension in shell, opening URL in web browser and etc, but it's not guaranteed to work in all ShellExecution scenarios.I will keep this issue open even after merging that PR to track the "invoke-on-STA-thread" work.
[-]Start-Process will not execute an MSI[/-][+]powershell should run `ShellExecuteEx` on STA thread[/+]iSazonov commentedon Mar 18, 2017
CoreFX issue https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/522 milestone is 1.0.0-rtm so I set "Waiting - NetStandard20"
joeyaiello commentedon Mar 27, 2017
Ilya (@iSazonov) So I'll be the first to admit that this thread is totally over my head, but
1.0.0-rtmin the CoreFX repo implies that that work already shipped in .NET Core 1.0 RTM.Is .NET Standard 2.0 still relevant here?
iSazonov commentedon Mar 27, 2017
I can't still find full support STA in CoreFX 😕
daxian-dbw commentedon Mar 27, 2017
The CoreFX issue was not addressed. It was closed as I quoted here:
jeffbi commentedon Mar 27, 2017
If it helps motivate them, without STA we cannot use IGroupPolicyObject (#3353)
daxian-dbw commentedon Mar 28, 2017
jeffbi Please leave a comment in the CoreFX issue. Maybe even reactivate the issue if you think it's a concrete scenario that should be supported in .NET Core.
4 remaining items
SteveL-MSFT commentedon Jul 26, 2017
STA is now in corefx
daxian-dbw commentedon Jul 26, 2017
Sweet! We need to clean up
ApartmentStaterelated workarounds in powershell now.