Using Powershell Invoke-Command on remote session to invoke executable by string

Question

I want to write a Powershell script to invoke an executable on a remote machine by its path and then wait for it to finish running. This is what I've got so far:

$executable = "C:\Temp\example.exe"
$session = New-PSSession -ComputerName VIRTUALMACHINE
$job = Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock {$executable} -AsJob
Wait-Job -Job $job

Instead of running C:\Temp\example.exe, the remote machine runs the string $executable - not exactly what I was going for here!

How do I fix this?

Answer 1

Using some information from Bacon Bits' answer, information from this answer, and some information from this answer, I managed to piece together a solution.

$executable = "C:\Temp\example.exe"
$session = New-PSSession -ComputerName VIRTUALMACHINE
Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock {Start-Process $using:executable -Wait}

The script block I was using before would run $executable as a script, that is return the value of $executable in the remote session, which just doesn't work at all. This doesn't get the local value of $executable, and it wouldn't run the executable anyway even if it did. To get the local value to the remote session, $using:executable will serve, but it still isn't being executed. Now, using Start-Process $using:executable will run the exeutable, as will &$using:executable or Invoke-Expression $using:executable, but it doesn't appear to work as the job will complete immediately. Using Start-Process $using:executable -Wait will achieve the originally intended task, although there are many ways to do this I think.

I will wait on accepting this as an answer until other people have had time to suggest perhaps better answers or correct any misinformation I may have given here.