PowerShell - Wait for Retract / Uninstall before Remove

CodeProject This is a very small tip for SharePoint developers. Basically people hate PowerShell before knowing it. But you will love it once you start using it. Sooooo Comfortable.

So, as a part of PowerShell commands, we have UnInstall-SPSolution command for retracting a SharePoint solution and Remove-SPSolution command to remove the solution from any scope.

When you execute these commands in a sequence in a script (.ps1) file, Usually we end up with an error saying
 Remove-SPSolution : The solution "XXXX.wsp" has been deployed in the farm. Please retract the deployment before removing the solution.You can also use the
-override parameter to forcibly remove the solution, but you will not be able to retract the solution deployment.

So we need to wait until the retraction / uninstallation is completed, to remove solution. But how we can wait in Automated scripts (.ps1) files.

Below is the way to wait . . .

I have 3 SharePoint solutions deployed to farm and I want a single script file which can uninstall and remove the solutions. Look at below PowerShell script.

add-pssnapin "microsoft.sharepoint.powershell"
Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted
echo " "
echo "Uninstalling Project1"
$sln = get-spsolution -identity SharepointProject1.wsp 
uninstall-spsolution -identity SharepointProject1.wsp -confirm:$false
echo "Started solution retraction..." 
while($sln.JobExists) { 
echo " > Uninstall in progress..."
start-sleep -s 10 
}
remove-spsolution -identity SharepointProject1.wsp -confirm:$false
echo "Removed Project1"
echo "  "
echo "Uninstalling Project2"
$sln = get-spsolution -identity SharepointProject2.wsp 
uninstall-spsolution -identity SharepointProject2.wsp -confirm:$false
echo "Started solution retraction..." 
while($sln.JobExists) { 
echo " > Uninstall in progress..." 
start-sleep -s 10
} 
remove-spsolution -identity SharepointProject2.wsp -confirm:$false
echo "Removed Project2"
echo "  "
echo "Uninstalling Project3"
$sln = get-spsolution -identity SharepointProject3.wsp
uninstall-spsolution -identity SharepointProject3.wsp -confirm:$false
echo "Started solution retraction..." 
while($sln.JobExists) { 
echo " > Uninstall in progress..." 
start-sleep -s 10 
} 
remove-spsolution -identity SharepointProject3.wsp -confirm:$false
echo "Removed Project3"

Now here is the output.

Task Accomplished.