diff --git a/nixos/modules/installer/tools/nixos-enter.sh b/nixos/modules/installer/tools/nixos-enter.sh
index 4680cd8ae95a..1fdd4627a902 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/installer/tools/nixos-enter.sh
+++ b/nixos/modules/installer/tools/nixos-enter.sh
@@ -60,15 +60,15 @@ chmod 0755 "$mountPoint/dev" "$mountPoint/sys"
 mount --rbind /dev "$mountPoint/dev"
 mount --rbind /sys "$mountPoint/sys"
 
-# If silent, write both stdout and stderr of activation script to /dev/null
-# otherwise, write both streams to stderr of this process
-if [ "$silent" -eq 0 ]; then
-    PIPE_TARGET="/dev/stderr"
-else
-    PIPE_TARGET="/dev/null"
-fi
+(
+    # If silent, write both stdout and stderr of activation script to /dev/null
+    # otherwise, write both streams to stderr of this process
+    if [ "$silent" -eq 1 ]; then
+        exec 2>/dev/null
+    fi
 
-# Run the activation script. Set $LOCALE_ARCHIVE to supress some Perl locale warnings.
-LOCALE_ARCHIVE="$system/sw/lib/locale/locale-archive" chroot "$mountPoint" "$system/activate" >>$PIPE_TARGET 2>&1 || true
+    # Run the activation script. Set $LOCALE_ARCHIVE to supress some Perl locale warnings.
+    LOCALE_ARCHIVE="$system/sw/lib/locale/locale-archive" chroot "$mountPoint" "$system/activate" 1>&2 || true
+)
 
 exec chroot "$mountPoint" "${command[@]}"