Errors when applying a manifest or doing a Puppet agent run

If your manifests aren't applied, or are applied incorrectly, on Windows nodes, check for these issues.

Path or file separators are incorrect

For Windows nodes, path separators must use a semi-colon (;).

File separators must use forward slashes or backslashes, depending on the attribute. In most resource attributes, the Puppet language accepts either forward slashes or backslashes as the file separator. However, some attributes absolutely require forward slashes, and some attributes absolutely require backslashes.

You must escape backslashes that are double-quoted("). When single-quoted ('), escaping is optional. For example, these are all valid file resources:

file { 'c:\path\to\file.txt': }
file { 'c:\\path\\to\\file.txt': }
file { "c:\\path\\to\\file.txt": }

However file { "c:\path\to\file.txt": } is an invalid path, because \p, \t, and \f are interpreted as escape sequences.

For more information:

Learn about Files and paths in the Puppet language on Windows in the Puppet documentation.
Learn about Windows modifications when Using example commands that you find in the PE documentation.

Cases are inconsistent

Several resources are case-insensitive on Windows, like files, users, groups. However, these resources can be case sensitive in Puppet.

When establishing dependencies among resources, make sure to specify the case consistently. Otherwise, Puppet can't resolve the dependencies correctly. For example, Puppet fails to apply the following manifest because it doesn't recognize that ALEX and alex are the same user:

file { 'c:\foo\bar':
  ensure => directory,
  owner  => 'ALEX'
}
user { 'alex':
  ensure => present
}
...
err: /Stage[main]//File[c:\foo\bar]: Could not evaluate: Could not find user ALEX

Shell built-ins are not executed

Puppet doesn't support a shell provider on Windows, so executing shell built-ins directly fails.

To troubleshoot this, use cmd.exe to wrap the built-in:

exec { 'cmd.exe /c echo foo':
  path => 'c:\windows\system32;c:\windows'
}

In the 32-bit versions of the Puppet agent, you might encounter file system redirection, where system32 is automatically switched to sysWoW64.

PowerShell scripts are not executed

By default, PowerShell enforces a restricted execution policy that prevents executing scripts.

To avoid this, use the Puppet-supported PowerShell or specify the appropriate execution policy in the PowerShell command, for example:

exec { 'test':
  command => 'powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -file C:\test.ps1',
  path    => $::path
}

Services are referenced by display names instead of short names

Windows services support a short name and a display name, but Puppet uses only short names.

Verify that your Puppet manifests use the short names, such as wuauserv instead of Automatic Updates.