In our Ongoing war against the Empire (Microsoft), we have recently suffered setbacks and require some assistance.
Ever since The Empire rebranded Microsoft Edge to Edge for Business in order to expand their reach in the galaxy, we have been struggling to use the old faithful PSADT.
It always gets stuck on this step “[Installation] :: Refreshing the Desktop and the Windows Explorer environment process block.”
I can install Edge 115 which is the one before the rebrand, without having this issue but anything higher always gets this error.
This issue only happens with Edge as no other MSI installs get stuck on this step.
Is anyone else experiencing this issue?
The “[Installation] :: Refreshing the Desktop and the Windows Explorer environment process block.” is something the Execute-MSI function does after it installs the MSI to update Environment Variables.
You could try to comment-out the Update-Desktop line near the end of the Execute-MSI function but I would reboot first and try again. Also, there may be something wrong with your Environment Variable on your test PC.
I didn’t really do any additional troubleshooting when it happened to us, but there were a few instances where installing MSI’s, and the subsequent Update-Desktop would cause a script hang at this exact spot - and then SCCM would eventually time out and kill the script (after its max runtime).
I Don’t know what it is about the “RefreshDesktopAndEnvironmentVariables” that fails sometimes, but the unpredicable nature in a smaller test bed of hundreds meant I was definitely commenting out the Update-Desktop in the MSI function before use on a fleet of 100,000+ workstations.
I don’t have the time to debug this - but we’re fine living without the Update-Desktop call from the Execute-MSI function.