PowerShell removing console message colors when using tee-object

Question

Is there any way to stop PowerShell from removing console message colors when using tee-object?

When I run without tee-object I get the nice error and verbose powershell message colors like this:

powershell.exe -noprofile -file $project_root/test_main.ps1

However, when I'm using tee-object (b/c I want logging to console & file), the message colors are not shown on the console (I know the file won't show it) like this:

powershell.exe -noprofile -file $project_root/test_main.ps1 | tee-object -FilePath $log

If powershell is just using tee-object to split the output to a file in addition to the console, why am I losing the console formatting?

Keith Hill · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-21 23:17:23Z

5

Try this instead:

powershell.exe -noprofile -command { $path\test_main.ps1 | tee-object $log }

This happens because this part is executed first:

powershell.exe -noprofile -file $project_root/test_main.ps1

Such that what tee-object sees is the output of a native EXE. And AFAICT, PowerShell doesn't output error records (or highlight) stderr output from a native EXE (unless you redirect the error stream e.g. 2>err.log.

edited Jul 21, 2010 at 23:17

answered Jul 21, 2010 at 23:10

Keith Hill

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3 Comments

DetectiveEric Over a year ago

I see what you're saying; however, I can't get that command method to work. First error was "You must provide a value expression on the right-hand side of the '/' operator." I tried escaping it with no luck. Then I tried making the "$path\test_main.ps1 | tee-object $log" a $command var, so I call powershell.exe -noprofile -command { $command } but that's not even calling the script or throwing an error when I call a non-existant script. As you can see Keith, I'm working off of your blog post "Effective PowerShell Item 14: Capturing All Output from a Script" to capture & log all output :)

Keith Hill Over a year ago

If you run the command from PowerShell.exe it should work (at least it did for me on my test script). If you're running it somewhere else besides PowerShell use ... -command "&{ $path\test_main.ps1 | tee-object $log }".

Keith Hill Over a year ago

RE "capturing all output from a script" - I was disappointed when PowerShell 2.0 shipped without addressing the script logging issue. :-(

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