Capturing standard out and error with Start-Process

In the code given in the question, I think that reading the ExitCode property of the initiation variable should work.

$process = Start-Process -FilePath ping -ArgumentList localhost -NoNewWindow -PassThru -Wait
$process.ExitCode

Note that (as in your example) you need to add the -PassThru and -Wait parameters (this caught me out for a while).

That's how Start-Process was designed for some reason. Here's a way to get it without sending to file:

$pinfo = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
$pinfo.FileName = "ping.exe"
$pinfo.RedirectStandardError = $true
$pinfo.RedirectStandardOutput = $true
$pinfo.UseShellExecute = $false
$pinfo.Arguments = "localhost"
$p = New-Object System.Diagnostics.Process
$p.StartInfo = $pinfo
$p.Start() | Out-Null
$p.WaitForExit()
$stdout = $p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()
$stderr = $p.StandardError.ReadToEnd()
Write-Host "stdout: $stdout"
Write-Host "stderr: $stderr"
Write-Host "exit code: " + $p.ExitCode

IMPORTANT:

We have been using the function as provided above by LPG.

However, this contains a bug you might encounter when you start a process that generates a lot of output. Due to this you might end up with a deadlock when using this function. Instead use the adapted version below:

Function Execute-Command ($commandTitle, $commandPath, $commandArguments)
{
  Try {
    $pinfo = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
    $pinfo.FileName = $commandPath
    $pinfo.RedirectStandardError = $true
    $pinfo.RedirectStandardOutput = $true
    $pinfo.UseShellExecute = $false
    $pinfo.Arguments = $commandArguments
    $p = New-Object System.Diagnostics.Process
    $p.StartInfo = $pinfo
    $p.Start() | Out-Null
    [pscustomobject]@{
        commandTitle = $commandTitle
        stdout = $p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()
        stderr = $p.StandardError.ReadToEnd()
        ExitCode = $p.ExitCode
    }
    $p.WaitForExit()
  }
  Catch {
     exit
  }
}

Further information on this issue can be found at MSDN:

A deadlock condition can result if the parent process calls p.WaitForExit before p.StandardError.ReadToEnd and the child process writes enough text to fill the redirected stream. The parent process would wait indefinitely for the child process to exit. The child process would wait indefinitely for the parent to read from the full StandardError stream.