Azure emulator - StartUp task - Content of Powershell script appears to be ignored

I have an Azure project with a WorkerRole for which I have a StartUp task. The startup task is a simple .cmd file (startup.cmd), which calls a powershell script (PerformanceCounterInstaller.ps1). It appears the .cmd file gets executed just fine and it can find the .ps1 file (if the path or name of the .ps1 file is incorrect, I see mentions of it in the err.out file). However, the actual content of the .ps1 file seems to be ignored completely (Write-Output commands, Start-Transcript, Creation of performance counter, ...). I don't get any feedback or any data showing any of the attempted operations were performed.

The only data I have in err.out and std.out is coming from the .cmd file and I can't locate any transcript file.

Regards, Mario.

The content of the relevant files can be found below.

------Content of ServiceDefinition.csdef : ------

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzure2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition" schemaVersion="2012-10.1.8">
  <WorkerRole name="MBAzureTestServiceWorkerRole" vmsize="Small">
    <Startup>
      <Task commandLine="StartupTasks\startuptasks.cmd" executionContext="elevated" taskType="simple" />
    </Startup>
    <Imports>
      <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" />
    </Imports>
  </WorkerRole>
</ServiceDefinition>

------Content of startuptasks.cmd : ------

cd %~dp0
echo %date% %time% >>std.out
echo %date% %time% >>err.out
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted './PerformanceCounterInstaller.ps1'  >>std.out   2>> err.out
EXIT /B 0

------Content of PerformanceCounterInstaller.ps1 : ------

$serviceName = "Test Service"

# Write-Output "This is a test of the broadcasting system..."

Start-Transcript -Path startup_transcript.txt 
Stop-Transcript
[more stuff]