When installing Sitecore 9.1, how does one fix this error "Cannot retrieve the dynamic parameters for the cmdlet..."?

Question

I had a strange problem when I was installing Sitecore 9.1 and here is the solution.

The problem occurred when running the SIF command Install-SitecoreConfiguration @xconnectParams from the SIF section # Deploy XConnect instance. It failed with this error:

Install-SitecoreConfiguration : Cannot retrieve the dynamic parameters for the cmdlet. Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {688EEEE5-6A7E-422F-B2E1-6AF00DC944A6} failed due to the following error: 80040154 Class not registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040154 (REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG)). At line:1 char:1 + Install-SitecoreConfiguration @xconnectParams -verbose *>&1 | Tee-Ob ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorException,Install-SitecoreConfiguration

Answer 1

The solution was changing the "bitness" of my PowerShell.exe. Somehow, and I have a guess how, I was running 32 bit Powershell instead of 64 bit Powershell on my 64 bit Azure VM. Once I started the 64 bit version of Powershell, all was fine.

The (correct) 64 bit was located at C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

My guess on how I started the 32 bit instead was I searched for Powershell.exe and did not notice that it was starting from the 32 bit folder C:\Windows\SysWOW64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Answer 2

There is an easy way, to protect Powershell scripts to run under wrong bit versions.

If(![Environment]::Is64BitProcess) 
{
    Write-Host "Please run 64-bit PowerShell" -foregroundcolor "yellow"
    return
}

Answer 3

One side note for this... If you are running PowerShell from within VS so you have admin privileges in PowerShell (using VS admin privileges) no matter what path you are pointing to, it will always open the 32bit even if the (x86) is not in the menu bar. You need to open PowerShell 64 bit directly with Admin privileges.