Powershell Form not closing

Question

I am fairly new to PowerShell and Forms. I have a form I am trying to use outlook app from, Everything works as expected, the e-mail goes out as it should however powershell remains open in the background, so I am tryiing to figure out what I am missing or not doing right. Your help and knowledge is greatly appreciated.

 Copy-Item -Path C:\temp\logo.jpg "$env:USERPROFILE\logo.jpg"
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Drawing
 
# Create the form
$form = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form
$form.Text = "Logo Information System"
$form.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(500, 350)
$form.FormBorderStyle = "FixedDialog"
$form.ControlBox = $false
$form.StartPosition = "CenterScreen"
$form.BackColor = "Black"
 
# Load and set the image in the title bar
$icon = [System.Drawing.Image]::FromFile("$env:USERPROFILE\logo.jpg")
$pictureBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox
$pictureBox.Image = $icon
$pictureBox.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(94, 94)
$pictureBox.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10, 10)
$form.Controls.Add($pictureBox)
 
# Title label
$titleLabel = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label
$titleLabel.Text = "Windows 11 Upgrade Notification"
$titleLabel.Font = New-Object System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 14, [System.Drawing.FontStyle]::Bold)
$titleLabel.ForeColor = "Red"
$titleLabel.BackColor = "Black"
$titleLabel.AutoSize = $true
$titleLabel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(120, 40)
$form.Controls.Add($titleLabel)
 
# Message Box
$msgLabel = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label
$msgLabel.Text = "Add here anything?"
$msgLabel.Font = New-Object System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 10, [System.Drawing.FontStyle]::Bold)
$msgLabel.ForeColor = "Red"
$msgLabel.BackColor = "Black"
$msgLabel.AutoSize = $true
$msgLabel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(120, 70)
$form.Controls.Add($msgLabel)
 
# Text Box (Centered)
$textBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
$textBox.Multiline = $true
$textBox.ReadOnly = $true
$textBox.Text = "Windows 11 is being rolled out in your environment. Please select an option below."
$textBox.Font = New-Object System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 12)
$textBox.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(460, 100)
$textBox.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10, 110)
$textBox.TextAlign = "Center"
$form.Controls.Add($textBox)
 
# Buttons
$btnStartUpgrade = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$btnStartUpgrade.Text = "Upgrade Tonight"
$btnStartUpgrade.Font = New-Object System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 10, [System.Drawing.FontStyle]::Bold)
$btnStartUpgrade.ForeColor = "Black"
$btnStartUpgrade.BackColor = "Green"
$btnStartUpgrade.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(220, 40)
$btnStartUpgrade.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10, 240)
$btnStartUpgrade.Add_Click({ Start-Process "mailto:someone@outlook.com?subject=Upgrade Confirmation Notification&body=$env:computername would like to upgrade to Windows 11 tonight at 20:00 followed by an immediate reboot."
})
$form.Controls.Add($btnStartUpgrade)
#
$btnOptOut = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$btnOptOut.Text = "Opt-Out of Win 11 upgrade"
$btnOptOut.Font = New-Object System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 10, [System.Drawing.FontStyle]::Bold)
$btnOptOut.ForeColor = "Black"
$btnOptOut.BackColor = "Yellow"
$btnOptOut.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(220, 40)
$btnOptOut.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(250, 240)
$btnOptOut.Add_Click({
    "Start-Process mailto:someone@moutlook.com?subject=Opt-Out Request&body=$env:computername would like to opt out of the Windows 11 upgrade."
})
$form.Controls.Add($btnOptOut)
 
# Show the form
$form.ShowDialog()

Answer 1

Preface:

• If your issue is simply about how to close your WinForms form after clicking a button:

  • Add the following to your script, just before the $form.ShowDialog() call:

    $form.CancelButton = $btnOptOut
    $form.AcceptButton = $btnStartUpgrade
    $btnStartUpgrade.DialogResult = 'OK'
    

  • As as result, clicking either button will implicitly close your form after the event handler has executed, the blocking $form.ShowDialog() will return, and execution of your script will resume; once your script exits (which with your sample code would be immediately, given that there are no statements after this call); if your PowerShell session was started in a way that only runs your script, it will end along with your script, causing the associated (blue by default) console window to close also (see also the next section).

    • Note that this also enables keyboard support: ESC triggers a click on the button stored in the .CancelButton property, whereas ENTER "clicks" the button stored in .AcceptButton.

    • However, if you'd rather not enable these keyboard shortcuts, you can manually close your form from inside each button event-handler script block, by placing $form.Close() at the end of each, as Luuk suggests.
      In that case, the the $form.ShowDialog() call will invariably return the Cancel enumeration value, irrespective of which button was pressed (see next point).

  • Irrespective of whether you use the mouse or the keyboard to press these buttons, the $form.ShowDialog() method call will report the respective enumeration value indicating which button was used to close the form, i.e. either Cancel or OK

• By contrast, the section below addresses how to hide the console window associated with the PowerShell session that runs your script.

---

• PowerShell must remain running for as long as your WinForms forms is being displayed in order for event processing to work.

• However, you can hide the PowerShell console window (this assumes that your script was launched directly from outside an existing console window, such as via a shortcut file):

  • From inside your script, by placing the following command at the point where you'd like the console window to be hidden.

    # Dummy powershell.exe call that hides the caller's console window.
    $null = powershell.exe -windowstyle hidden -?
    

  • Alternatively, if you want to prevent creation of a console window for your script to begin with, you need a GUI(-subsystem) helper application (with the in-script technique above, even if you place the command to hide the console window at the very start of the script, the window will still initially be created visibly, causing a brief flash):

    • See the bottom section of this answer for an overview of available techniques; it also links to a future enhancement that will allow applications designed for it to situationally decide whether to allocate a console or not.

When you close the WinForms form, control is returned to your PowerShell script and execution resumes with statements after $form.ShowDialog() - if any (none in your sample code).

If your script was launched directly, exiting the script will also exit the hosting powershell.exe process (or, pwsh.exe, if you're using PowerShell (Core) 7).