Copilot shell on windows errors

[kokosinkaeleno-cell]

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<exited with error: PowerShell 6+ (pwsh) is not available. Please install it from https://aka.ms/powershell.
Error: Error: Command failed: pwsh.exe --version
'pwsh.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

pwsh.exe --version
PowerShell 7.5.4

its happening on every windows pc I try to run on. How can this happen on such system? Is noone from developers using it on windows?

[rushikesh-bobade]

Hello! It is incredibly frustrating when a tool tells you something isn't installed when you know for a fact that it is.

The reason this is happening is due to how the Copilot CLI runs in the background. It uses a background process (Node.js) to try and spawn pwsh.exe. Even if you can run pwsh.exe in your current terminal, if the actual folder containing the pwsh.exe file isn't explicitly listed in your Windows System PATH environment variable, the background process won't be able to find it.

Here is exactly how to fix this so Copilot can see your PowerShell 7 installation:

Step 1: Find where PowerShell 7 is installed
Usually, it is located at C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\. Verify that pwsh.exe is actually inside this folder. If you installed it via the Microsoft Store or a tool like Scoop/Winget, it might be in your AppData folder. Copy that folder path.

Step 2: Add it to your Windows PATH

1. Press the Windows Key, type Environment Variables, and select Edit the system environment variables.
2. Click the Environment Variables... button at the bottom right.
3. Under the System variables section (the bottom half), scroll down, select the Path variable, and click Edit...
4. Click New and paste the folder path from Step 1 (e.g., C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\).
5. Click OK on all three windows to save and apply the changes.

Step 3: The crucial final step
You must completely close and restart your terminal, command prompt, and your IDE (like VS Code). If you don't completely restart them, they will hold onto the old PATH memory and the error will keep happening.

Once you restart and run the Copilot shell again, it will successfully find pwsh.exe and stop throwing that error!

[Gecko51]

The error happens because Copilot shell is looking for pwsh.exe in the system PATH and not finding it, even though PowerShell 7 is installed.

PowerShell 7 installs to C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\ but doesn't always add itself to the system PATH automatically, especially if you installed it without admin rights or via a non-standard method.

To fix it:

1. Open System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables
2. Under "System variables", find Path and click Edit
3. Add C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\
4. Click OK and restart your terminals and VS Code completely (not just reload window)

You can verify it's working by opening a new terminal and running pwsh --version. If that returns a version number, Copilot shell should pick it up on next launch.

If PowerShell 7 isn't installed at all, grab it from the Microsoft Store or the GitHub releases page for PowerShell, the Store version handles PATH automatically.

[sanperrier]

But what to do if your scripts (eg. in package.json) are not designed to run in pwsh? Do i need to rewrite scripts, because of cli insists to run them in pwsh for no apparent reasons.

[bhavy-sharma]

The error indicates that pwsh.exe (PowerShell 6+) is either not installed correctly or not available in the system’s PATH, even though a version of PowerShell may be present on the machine.

GitHub tools that rely on pwsh expect PowerShell 7+ to be properly installed and accessible via PATH. If pwsh --version works in your terminal but fails when invoked by the tool, it’s likely an environment/path configuration issue rather than a platform-wide problem.

Suggested steps:

Ensure PowerShell 7+ is installed from the official source.
Verify that the installation directory is added to your system PATH.
Restart your terminal or system after installation.
Run where pwsh (Windows) to confirm it resolves correctly.

We regularly test on Windows environments, but configurations can vary between systems.

If the issue persists, please share additional details about your setup so we can investigate further.

[moriletech000]

Yeah, this is honestly pretty frustrating. The weird part is that the error literally says pwsh.exe is not available, but then right under it it shows PowerShell 7.5.4, which means it is installed. That usually happens when the app can’t find pwsh in the system PATH on Windows.

What’s surprising is that this is happening across multiple Windows machines. You’d expect something this basic to have been caught already if the feature is meant to support Windows properly. It really does feel like the developers mostly test on macOS/Linux sometimes.

A quick workaround is usually adding the PowerShell 7 install directory to PATH manually. On most systems it’s something like:

C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\

After adding that, restarting the terminal/VS Code usually fixes it.

Still, users really shouldn’t have to do this manually in 2026.

[rushikesh-bobade]

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Hi @kokosinkaeleno-cell! I feel your pain. It’s a bit of a "Windows tax" that the tool shows you the version you have installed but then claims it can't find it.

The reason this is happening on "every Windows PC" is usually because GitHub Copilot for CLI specifically calls pwsh.exe (the PowerShell Core executable name), but many Windows environments only have the standard powershell.exe in the path, or the PowerShell 7 installer didn't register the "pwsh" alias correctly for background processes.

The most reliable fix (without clicking through 10 menus) is to run this one-liner in an Admin PowerShell window:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env:Path + ";C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\", "Machine")

Why this actually works:

1. Background vs. Foreground: When you run pwsh --version yourself, you are in a shell that likely has a temporary path mapping. But Copilot runs as a background Node.js process; it needs the path to be in the System/Machine environment variables to "see" it.
2. The Store Issue: If you installed PowerShell via the Microsoft Store, the path is actually hidden in a restricted WindowsApps folder. If the command above doesn't work, I highly recommend installing via Winget, as it handles the PATH registration much better for CLI tools:
   winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell --source winget

Important: You must restart VS Code or your terminal completely after running that command for the changes to take effect.

Give that a shot—it should clear the error across all your machines!

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