Start-UltraCode.ps1 fails to parse on Windows PowerShell 5.1 (em-dash on line 233 breaks under CP1252) #17

Summary

windows/Start-UltraCode.ps1 fails to run on Windows PowerShell 5.1 (the default powershell.exe that the Start menu / desktop .lnk launchers invoke). The launcher window flashes and closes immediately; nothing starts.

Root cause

Line 233 (as of de3a006) contains a literal em-dash — (U+2014):

Write-Host "  (worker set explicitly — plain /model picks change orchestrator only)"

The file is saved as UTF-8 without a BOM. Windows PowerShell 5.1, when running a BOM-less script via -File, decodes it as the system ANSI code page (Windows-1252), not UTF-8. The em-dash is UTF-8 bytes E2 80 94; the third byte 0x94 is the right double-quotation mark " in CP1252. That byte prematurely terminates the string literal, so the rest of the line and the surrounding if/else block collapse into garbage tokens.

Result: 11 cascading parse errors, e.g.:

Start-UltraCode.ps1:233 char:97  Unexpected token ')' in expression or statement.
Start-UltraCode.ps1:232 char:34  Missing closing '}' in statement block or type definition.
Start-UltraCode.ps1:220 char:14  Missing closing '}' ...
Start-UltraCode.ps1:235 ... Unexpected token '"

Reproduce

# Windows PowerShell 5.1
[System.Management.Automation.Language.Parser]::ParseFile(
  '...\windows\Start-UltraCode.ps1', [ref]$null, [ref]([ref]$errs).Value)
# -> 11 errors, all downstream of line 233
powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\windows\Start-UltraCode.ps1 -Status
# -> dies with the parse errors above; exit 1

PowerShell 7+ (pwsh) defaults to UTF-8 and does not reproduce — which is likely why it slipped through. The desktop/Start-menu shortcuts use powershell.exe (5.1), so end users hit it.

Fix (one of)

1. Simplest / recommended: replace the em-dash with ASCII -- (the rest of the file already uses --). Keeps the script pure-ASCII and immune:

   Write-Host "  (worker set explicitly -- plain /model picks change orchestrator only)"

2. Or save Start-UltraCode.ps1 with a UTF-8 BOM so 5.1 decodes it correctly.

Option 1 is safer (no BOM, no encoding dependency). Suggest also adding a CI/pre-commit guard that rejects non-ASCII bytes in .ps1 launchers.

Environment

• Windows 11 Pro 26200, Windows PowerShell 5.1
• UltraCode-Shim @ de3a006 (current main)