feat(updater): robust PowerShell invocation for Windows code-signature verification

[mmaietta]

Fixes #9688 — Get-AuthenticodeSignature failures on Windows 10 / Electron 40 / Node 24 configurations.

Summary

• Core fix — shell: false + -EncodedCommand: PowerShell is now invoked directly via execFile instead of being chained through cmd.exe. The command is passed as a Base64-encoded UTF-16LE string via -EncodedCommand, removing the cmd.exe invocation and the chcp 65001 >NUL & pipeline entirely.

• UTF-8 output encoding: Moved from the chcp 65001 shell command to $OutputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8 configured inside the PowerShell script. Both variables must be set together for ConvertTo-Json to emit UTF-8 when stdout is captured by Node (fixes Certificates with special characters are not accepted anymore since electron-updater v1.6.9 #8162 class of errors — non-ASCII characters in the update path).

• Module loading hardened: Import-Module uses "$PSHOME\Modules\Microsoft.PowerShell.Security" (PowerShell's own trusted install directory) before $env:PSModulePath is cleared, so the correct module is loaded even on Windows Server 2025 where auto-loading requires PSModulePath at import time. PSModulePath is also deleted from the Node-side env option as belt-and-suspenders.

• Progress-stream suppression: $ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue' is set first in the script so the "Preparing modules for first use." CLIXML record is never written to stderr, eliminating false-positive error detection on first-run environments.

• Bug fix — double-reject in handleError: The previous if (error) { reject() } if (stderr) { reject() } pattern could settle the Promise twice when both fields were set. Corrected to else if.

• Typo fix: normlaizedUpdateFilePath → normalizedUpdateFilePath.

• Reduced cyclomatic complexity: Extracted three private helpers to flatten verifySignature (CC 6 → 3):

  • checkLiteralPath — validates data.Path against the expected update path and calls reject() directly on mismatch (removes the spurious ConvertTo-Json probe on path-mismatch failures).
  • matchPublisher — DN matching loop.
  • evaluateSignatureResult — parses the PS JSON output and coordinates the LiteralPath + publisher checks.

• Path injection comment trimmed: Multi-line example block replaced with a 2-line explanation (WHY only — PowerShell single-quoted strings make $, `, and \ literal; only ' needs escaping).

• Test — vi.importActual moved to beforeAll: In the e2e describe block, the expensive vi.importActual calls for real child_process and os implementations are obtained once in beforeAll rather than re-fetched before every test in beforeEach.

• Test coverage (unit, platform-agnostic): 46 tests pass, up from 41. New cases cover:

  • Status 3 (HashMismatch) and Status 4 (NotSupportedFileFormat) return non-null error strings.
  • Empty stdout ("") rejects via the catch path (JSON.parse throws).
  • $ in path is passed verbatim inside the single-quoted PS string.
  • Backtick in path is passed verbatim inside the single-quoted PS string.

• Test coverage (e2e, Windows-only describe.ifWindows): 4 new real-PowerShell tests validate that directory names containing &, %VAR%, $, and backtick characters — which were dangerous under the old cmd.exe-based invocation — now complete without crash or spurious rejection.

Changed Files

File	Change
packages/electron-updater/src/windowsExecutableCodeSignatureVerifier.ts	Core fix: shell: false, -EncodedCommand, helper extraction, bug fixes, comment cleanup
test/src/updater/windowsExecutableCodeSignatureVerifierTest.ts	+5 unit tests, +4 e2e tests; vi.importActual moved to beforeAll
test/snapshots/updater/windowsExecutableCodeSignatureVerifierTest.js.snap	Snapshot of encoded script (path placeholder replaces dynamic tmp path)

[changeset-bot]

🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: 2e4e003

The changes in this PR will be included in the next version bump.

This PR includes changesets to release 1 package

Name	Type
electron-updater	Minor

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR updates how electron-updater invokes PowerShell to verify Windows Authenticode signatures, aiming to improve reliability on newer Windows Server versions and to ensure UTF-8 output handling without going through cmd.exe.

Changes:

• Refactor PowerShell invocation to use shell: false + -EncodedCommand, and configure UTF-8 output inside PowerShell.
• Adjust module-loading / PSModulePath handling intended to avoid autoload issues on newer Windows Server versions.
• Add unit + Windows-only e2e tests (with a snapshot) covering invocation parameters, escaping, and key verification behaviors.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

File	Description
packages/electron-updater/src/windowsExecutableCodeSignatureVerifier.ts	Refactors preparePowerShellExec to use -EncodedCommand, sets shell: false, and moves encoding/module setup into the PowerShell script.
test/src/updater/windowsExecutableCodeSignatureVerifierTest.ts	Adds comprehensive unit tests (mocked) and Windows-only e2e tests (real PowerShell) for signature verification and command construction/escaping.
test/snapshots/updater/windowsExecutableCodeSignatureVerifierTest.js.snap	Adds snapshot for the PowerShell executable + args (including encoded command).
.changeset/late-results-grab.md	Declares a minor changeset for electron-updater reflecting the PowerShell invocation change.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

[mayfield]

Is this going to get merged? I have users reporting errors upgrading and I'm hoping this fixes it.

[mmaietta]

I do plan to revisit this PR, but I had to pause work due to personal events. Hoping to reapply focus here soon. There was additional testing I was looking to do.