PowerShell script fails with error 14001 Script Unavailable

I created a Powershell type Action which runs successfully on 38 out of 39 target systems. The systems are all Win2022 (21H2) and completely patched.

On one system, I get a status I’ve never seen before:

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The client log shows the following error:

At 15:36:38 -0400 - CustomSite_Custom_Content (http://bigfixserver.xyz:52311/cgi-bin/bfgather.exe/CustomSite_Custom_Content)
   Error executing script C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\__BESData\__bes132.ps1: CreateProcess failed ( 14001: The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail. )

Searching for this on the Internet returned lots of results promising to fix the error, but not much on the root cause.

Anyone have any insight into this error?

Side-by-side errors that I’ve experienced usually indicate a library is missing or corrupt.
I’d be really interested in whether PowerShell can execute outside.of BigFix on that particular machine.

Good idea. I’ll get with some admins and see what happens.

Looks like the issue was with the C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe.Config file on that machine. It was modified in a way that made the XML invalid, which caused the OS to block execution.

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Nice find! Thanks for posting the solution.

It was defiinitely a head scratcher. At first the admin was able to run the script locally, but it turned out he was using the PowerShell ISE, not PowerShell itself.

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