Codex desktop on Windows cannot start PowerShell host in session (8009001d)

[TaylorAdamCA]

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.305.950.0

What subscription do you have?

Go, Planning to go Pro if I can get it to work

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Summary

Codex desktop is unable to run any shell command on Windows because its managed PowerShell host fails during initialization.

This blocks all repo access and file operations from the assistant, even for trivial commands like Get-Location.

Environment

• OS: Windows
• App: Codex desktop
• Shell configured in session: PowerShell
• Workspace: local repo on Windows filesystem

What I Expected

Codex should be able to start the shell host and run normal commands in the workspace, for example:

Get-Location
Get-ChildItem -Force
git status --short

What Actually Happened

`Every command fails before execution with the same PowerShell host startup error.

Observed errors:

Internal Windows PowerShell error. Loading managed Windows PowerShell failed with error 8009001d.

Also saw once during earlier attempts:

CreateProcessWithLogonW failed: 1056

Impact

This makes the coding agent unusable for local development tasks because it cannot:

• inspect files
• search the repo
• edit code
• run tests
• run git commands

Result

The command does not run. The shell host fails immediately with:

Internal Windows PowerShell error. Loading managed Windows PowerShell failed with error 8009001d.

Troubleshooting Already Tried

• Restarted Codex
• Restarted the session/thread
• Granted full access
• Rebooted Windows
• Installed Windows updates
• Ran sfc /scannow with no issues found
• Reinstalled the Codex desktop app

Additional Notes

PowerShell itself appears to work normally outside Codex. Running this manually succeeds:

powershell -NoProfile -Command "Write-Output ok"

That suggests the problem is specific to the Codex desktop shell host / PowerShell integration rather than Windows PowerShell itself.

Request

Please investigate the Windows PowerShell host initialization path in Codex desktop, specifically around the managed host startup and any crypto/profile-related dependency that could trigger error 8009001d.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Steps To Reproduce

1. Open Codex desktop on Windows.
2. Open any local workspace.
3. Start a new chat/session.
4. Ask the agent to run any simple shell command in the workspace, examples:

Get-Location
Get-ChildItem -Force
git status --short

What is the expected behavior?

What I Expected

Codex should be able to start the shell host and run normal commands in the workspace, for example:

Get-Location
Get-ChildItem -Force
git status --short

Additional information

No response

[github-actions]

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

• windows: All shell commands crash with "Could not load netstandard 2.0.0.0" at PowerShell startup stage #13340

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[TaylorAdamCA]

Not a duplicate no

[kkx9578]

I can reproduce the same issue on Windows.

What I verified:

• powershell.exe -NoLogo -NoProfile starts normally outside Codex Desktop.
• PowerShell 7.5.4 (pwsh) also installs and starts normally.
• The bundled Codex CLI binary starts normally and codex.exe --help works.
• In Codex Desktop, any internal command execution fails before the command actually runs, with the same 8009001d PowerShell host error.
• Changing Integrated terminal shell from PowerShell to Command Prompt in Codex Desktop does not fix the issue.
• Restarting Windows does not fix it.
• Reinstalling Codex Desktop does not fix it.

Additional details:

• This does not look like a broken system PowerShell installation, because standalone powershell.exe works.
• It also does not look like a broken Codex backend binary, because codex.exe --help works.
• The failure appears to be specific to the Codex Desktop internal command/session host on Windows.

PowerShell checks:

• powershell.exe -NoLogo -NoProfile -> works
• pwsh -NoLogo -NoProfile -> works

Codex backend check:

• ...\\vendor\\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\\codex\\codex.exe --help -> works

My current conclusion:

• The issue seems to be in Codex Desktop’s Windows session/PTY/process environment when starting the internal PowerShell host, not in Windows PowerShell itself.

If useful, I can also provide the exact Codex Desktop version from “About Codex”.

[rzh0504]

我在Windows系统上也遇到了同样的问题。

我核实的内容：

• powershell.exe -NoLogo -NoProfile正常情况下，在 Codex Desktop 之外即可启动。
• PowerShell 7.5.4 ( pwsh) 也能正常安装和启动。
• 捆绑的 Codex CLI 二进制文件可以正常启动并codex.exe --help运行。
• 在 Codex Desktop 中，任何内部命令的执行都会在命令实际运行之前失败，并出现相同的8009001dPowerShell 主机错误。
• Integrated terminal shell在 Codex Desktop 中将值从更改PowerShell为Command Prompt并不能解决问题。
• 重启Windows系统也无法解决问题。
• 重新安装 Codex Desktop 也无法解决问题。

更多详情：

• 这看起来不像是一个损坏的系统 PowerShell 安装，因为独立powershell.exe运行是正常的。
• 它看起来也不像是 Codex 后端二进制文件损坏了，因为codex.exe --help它可以正常工作。
• 该故障似乎是 Windows 系统上 Codex Desktop 内部命令/会话主机特有的。

PowerShell 检查：

• powershell.exe -NoLogo -NoProfile-> 有效
• pwsh -NoLogo -NoProfile-> 有效

Codex 后端检查：

• ...\\vendor\\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\\codex\\codex.exe --help-> 有效

我目前的结论是：

• 问题似乎出在 Codex Desktop 的 Windows 会话/PTY/进程环境中，启动内部 PowerShell 主机时，而不是 Windows PowerShell 本身。

如果需要，我还可以提供“关于 Codex”中的 Codex Desktop 确切版本。

same problem

[mcgogo64-cell]

I found a solution that worked for me:

1. Uninstall the Codex desktop app
2. 2. Uninstall Codex CLI
3. 3. Delete the following folders if they exist:
4. • C:\Users\<your_pc_username>\AppData\Local\Codex
5. • C:\Users\<your_pc_username>\AppData\Roaming\Codex
6. • C:\Users\<your_pc_username>\.codex
7. 4. Reinstall Codex
      After doing this, the issue was resolved for me. Hope it helps!

[TaylorAdamCA]

I also found a solution (using codex):

The fix was to tell Codex to inject two missing Windows environment variables into every shell it starts.

Why this matters:

• COMSPEC tells Windows where cmd.exe lives
• PATHEXT tells PowerShell which file extensions count as executable commands, like .EXE, .CMD, .BAT

In your broken Codex shell environment:

• COMSPEC was empty
• PATHEXT had only .CPL

That made normal commands like rg, git, python, and cmd fail even though they were installed.

I fixed it by adding these lines to Codex’s config:

• COMSPEC = "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe"
• PATHEXT = ".COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.PY;.PYW"

That is your per-user Codex config directory:

• folder: C:\Users[UserName].codex
• file: C:\Users[UserName].codex\config.toml

Not sure if this is a good permanent solution but it's working for me for the time being.

[kkx9578]

I found a solution that worked for me:

1. Uninstall the Codex desktop app
2. 2. Uninstall Codex CLI
3. 3. Delete the following folders if they exist:
4. • C:\Users\<your_pc_username>\AppData\Local\Codex
5. • C:\Users\<your_pc_username>\AppData\Roaming\Codex
6. • C:\Users\<your_pc_username>\.codex
7. 4. Reinstall Codex
      After doing this, the issue was resolved for me. Hope it helps!

I found this work，I deleted codex in windsurf ,and the windsurf ,and the codex app got worked.