How to add quotation marks on a value on registry? - powershell

Question

How do I add into the registry in which the value of the UninstallString needs to have quotation marks at the beginning and end.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x64)
tried to edit the value of the registry with this but received an error
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x64)" -Name "UninstallString" -Value ""C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\10.0\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x64)\install.exe"" -PropertyType "String"

Answer 1

Your question boils down to this: how can I pass an argument that has embedded " characters, i.e. " characters that are a verbatim part of the argument?
Specifically, you want New-ItemProperty's -Value parameter to see the following value verbatim:
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\10.0\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x64)\install.exe"
The tl;dr solution, using '...' quoting, is:
New-ItemProperty `
-Path "HKLM:\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x64)" -Name "UninstallString" `
-Value '"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\10.0\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x64)\install.exe"' `
-PropertyType String
Your own attempt - passing ""C:\Program Files\..."" - was flawed in that the initial "" created an empty-string argument, followed by argument C:\Program, and so on - which isn't what you intendded.
Read on for a overview of all solution options.
The following is a systematic overview of the solution options; it uses Write-Output and verbatim value "foo bar" for brevity, which enables easy verification of whether the argument was passed as intended:
Use a verbatim (single-quoted) string ('...'), if the value can be expressed as such, i.e., literally:
Write-Output '"foo bar"'
Use an expandable (double-quoted) string ("..."), if the value must be derived from variable values and/or subexpressions:
Inside "...", embedded " chars. must be escaped; while doubling them works (""), the preferable solution for consistency is to use `", because it uses PowerShell's general-purpose escape character, `, the so-called backtick:
$var = 'foo'
Write-Output "`"$var bar`""
Alternatively, use the here-string variants of the string-literal forms shown above, whose syntax is invariably multiline, and which are especially useful for defining multiline strings in a readable format; however, they are also useful for defining single-line strings, because they avoid the need for escaping of embedded quotes:
Verbatim (single-quoted) here-string:
Note: Since " do not require escaping in regular '...' strings anyway, there's not much benefit to using the here-string form in this case.
However, if the string contained embedded ' chars., you would benefit from not having to escape them (in regular verbatim strings, you'd have to escape them as '').
Write-Output #'
"foo bar"
'# # IMPORTANT: Closing delimiter must be at the VERY START OF THE LINE
Expandable (double-quoted) here-string:
Note how the embedded " need no escaping in this case.
The only character that potentially needs escaping - with ` - is $, namely if you do not want it to be considered the start of variable reference (e.g,. $foo) or subexpression (e.g, $(1 + 2)) to be expanded.
$var = 'foo'
Write-Output #"
"$var bar"
"# # IMPORTANT: Closing delimiter must be at the VERY START OF THE LINE
Caveat re calling external programs:
Up to PowerShell 7.2.x, the sad reality is that an extra, manual layer of \-escaping of embedded " characters is required.
See this answer.
Since PowerShell 7.3.0, this is now mostly no longer necessary, but on Windows there are selective exceptions:
See this answer.