Here is a quick script illustrating how a PowerShell script can send back a numeric status code to the caller:
$exitcode = 123 $p = Start-Process -FilePath powershell -ArgumentList "-command get-process; exit $exitcode" -PassThru Wait-Process -Id $p.Id 'External Script ended with exit code ' + $p.ExitCode
If you call the script directly (without Start-Process) from within PowerShell, the numeric return value is exposed in $LASTEXITCODE instead:
$exitcode = 199 powershell.exe "get-process; exit $exitcode" 'External Script ended with exit code ' + $LASTEXITCODE
And if you run a PowerShell script from within a batch file or VBScript, the numeric return value can be received in the environment variable %ERRORLEVEL%, just as if PowerShell was a console application – which powershell.exe in fact is.
