Fix pengwin.exe to respect starting directory from Windows Terminal

[Copilot]

The pengwin.exe launcher ignores the starting directory when invoked from Windows Terminal's "Open in Terminal" context menu, always launching in the user's home directory instead.

Changes

• Added IsCurrentDirNotSystem32() helper: Detects whether the launcher was invoked from Explorer/Terminal vs. Start Menu by checking if CWD != System32
• Modified launch logic: Pass useCurrentWorkingDirectory=true to WslLaunchInteractive() when not in System32
• Error handling: API failures default to true (respect CWD) for fail-safe behavior

Implementation

bool IsCurrentDirNotSystem32()
{
    wchar_t system32Dir[MAX_PATH];
    const auto system32DirLength = GetSystemDirectoryW(system32Dir, MAX_PATH);
    if (system32DirLength == 0 || system32DirLength >= MAX_PATH)
    {
        return true;  // On error, respect current directory
    }

    wchar_t currentDir[MAX_PATH];
    const auto currentDirLength = GetCurrentDirectoryW(MAX_PATH, currentDir);
    if (currentDirLength == 0 || currentDirLength >= MAX_PATH)
    {
        return true;
    }

    return _wcsicmp(system32Dir, currentDir) != 0;
}

// In wmain():
const bool useCurrentWorkingDirectory = IsCurrentDirNotSystem32();
hr = g_wslApi.WslLaunchInteractive(L"", useCurrentWorkingDirectory, &exitCode);

Based on the proven fix from Pengwin Enterprise.

Original prompt

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This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>Windows Terminal "Open in Terminal" explorer.exe right-click context menu not working properly</issue_title> <issue_description>In Windows Terminal settings when the Command line setting it set to: %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps\WhitewaterFoundryLtd.Co.16571368D6CFF_22.3.2.0_x64__kd1vv0z0vy70w\DistroLauncher\pengwin.exe the explorer.exe right-click context menu item to "Open in Terminal" doesn't work, as "does not respect the starting directory".

To get around this I have changed Command line: to wsl -d WLinux and Starting directory to ~.

Apparently this problem also occurs in WSL Ubuntu.

Ah, this is the same root cause as the Ubuntu startingDirectory bug. Pengwin has included a JSON file that overrides the commandline to point to pengwin.exe, but pengwin.exe does not respect the starting directory. Any executable that ignores its working directory will exhibit this behavior.

https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/13952?notification_referrer_id=NT_kwDOAAxwz7E0MzYzOTU2MDczOjgxNTMxMQ#issuecomment-1241393694

I don't yet know if there are any problems caused by this workaround. I'll report them here if I find any. </issue_description>

<agent_instructions>this issue was already fixed in pengwin enterprise. basically you need to modify distrolauncher (pengwin.exe) to be aware of the current directory. copy the implementation from this project https://github.com/WhitewaterFoundry/Pengwin-Enterprise</agent_instructions>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

@crramirez Probably because we needed to put a Starting Directory in the Json fragment as a workaround for an issue that Windows Terminal had.

Another workaround would be installing the Open with Pengwin option in pengwin-setup.

Thanks for reporting, we will figure out how to fix it.

Regards, Carlos </comment_new>

• Fixes WhitewaterFoundry/Pengwin#752

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