Spaces in windows PATH break when appendWindowsPath is true

[cooperoptigrid]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26200.7171]

WSL Version

2.5.9.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• [x] WSL 2
• [ ] WSL 1

Kernel Version

6.6.87.2-1

Distro Version

Ubuntu 24.04

Other Software

VS Code - 1.106.2 Cursor - 2.1.25

Repro Steps

>>> code .
command code not found
>>> cursor .
command cursor not found

Expected Behavior

>>> code .  # opens VS Code
>>> cursor .  # opens Cursor

Actual Behavior

>>> code .
command code not found
>>> cursor .
command cursor not found

Diagnostic Logs

>>> echo $PATH
# ... bunch of normal linux paths like /usr/bin]
# broken Windows Paths, note ":" where spaces should be
/mnt/c/Program:Files/dotnet/:Files/Git/cmd:Files/Amazon/AWSCLIV2/:/Docker/host/bin:Files/cursor/resources/app/bin:Files/PowerShell/7/:/mnt/c/Users/Cooper/.local/bin:/mnt/c/Users/Cooper/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps:/mnt/c/Users/Cooper/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft:VS:Code/bin:
# bunch of other stufff

A workaround is for me to manually add the correct paths to my .bashrc

# temporary, hopefully. not sure why this suddenly stopped working...
export PATH="$PATH:/mnt/c/Users/Cooper/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/bin"
export PATH="$PATH:/mnt/c/Program Files/cursor/resources/app/bin"

This make it work!

This was never a problem until I restarted my device recently (and presumbaly some updates were applied).

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[cooperoptigrid]

/emailed-logs

[github-actions[bot]]

Diagnostic information

Found '/emailed-logs', adding tag 'emailed-logs'

[OneBlue]

Thank you for reporting this @cooperoptigrid.

Could you share which PATH you have set in that shell ? I wonder if there's a parsing bug in wsl.exe.

For PowerShell:

echo $env:PATH

For cmd.exe:

path

[cooperoptigrid]

@OneBlue here it is

PS C:\Users\CooperEllidge> echo $env:PATH
C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files\Amazon\AWSCLIV2\;C:\Program Files\cursor\resources\app\bin;C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\;C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\resources\bin;C:\Users\CooperEllidge\.local\bin;C:\Users\CooperEllidge\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\CooperEllidge\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin;C:\Users\CooperEllidge\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Packages\Gruntwork.Terragrunt_Microsoft.Winget.Source_8wekyb3d8bbwe;C:\Users\CooperEllidge\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Packages\Hashicorp.Terraform_Microsoft.Winget.Source_8wekyb3d8bbwe;C:\Users\CooperEllidge\AppData\Local\Programs\Zed\bin

[dimateos]

This is also affecting me.

Also, not sure if related, as I don't know if this was being parsed properly before (recently started using WSL). Vscode sets "terminal.integrated.env.linux" but it is not parsing vscode config vars:

vscode config: "terminal.integrated.env.linux": { "PATH": "${env:PATH}:${workspaceRoot/bin}", }
bash $PATH: /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/usr/lib/wsl/lib:${workspaceRoot/bin}:/snap/bin: No such file or directory

this works fine in a native vscode install, so maybe this is on vscode remote server

Regards

[OneBlue]

Thank @cooperoptigrid. I can't reproduce the issue directly in WSL, so just checking, if you run wsl.exe outside of vscode, do you see the same issue or do things work as expected ?

[cooperoptigrid]

If I restart my computer, and open the Windows Terminal app with the Ubuntu shell then run the commands as above it doesn’t work.

@dimateos my workaround is to disable auto loading the env and then manually setting my WSL PATH in my .bashrc