Make Windows CLI installation tolerate app reinstalls #2463

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-23T08:48:31Z

Related issues

Fixes STU-1247

Proposed Changes

Note

From the user's perspective, I don't believe it's completely necessary to change this behavior. However, it will make the CLI installation more resilient in our internal smoke testing, which seems like a noble cause in and of itself.

When installing the CLI on Windows, WindowsCliInstallationManager does two things:

It adds C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin to the PATH variable in the registry
It creates the C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin directory and writes a studio.bat file to it

The reason we do it this way is that the app resources live in a versioned directory (i.e. C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\app-1.7.0-beta3). Instead of changing the PATH variable in the registry every time the app starts, we use a known, stable path and change the contents of C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin\studio.bat when the app starts.

This logic plays nicely with the auto-updater. However, it breaks when the app is manually reinstalled. When that happens, the PATH variable in the registry isn't touched, but the entire C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio directory is wiped, effectively uninstalling the CLI.

The WindowsCliInstallationManager::updateWindowsCliVersionedPathIfNeeded logic (which runs when the app starts and updates the contents of C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin\studio.bat) relies on the presence of the C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio directory. This PR changes that method to only look for C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin in the registry PATH and proceed with writing the studio.bat script if the registry key is there.

Testing Instructions

Have Studio installed on Windows
Have the Studio CLI installed
Download the Windows dev build
Install it
Ensure that the settings modal still shows the CLI to be installed
Open a command prompt using the button in the Overview tab
Ensure that the studio command is available in the command prompt

Pre-merge Checklist

Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-23T08:52:50Z

src/modules/cli/lib/windows-installation-manager.ts

-// `unversionedBinDirPath` resolves to C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin
-const unversionedBinDirPath = path.resolve( path.dirname( app.getPath( 'exe' ) ), '../bin' );
+// `stableBinDirPath` resolves to C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin
+const stableBinDirPath = path.resolve( path.dirname( app.getPath( 'exe' ) ), '../bin' );


I found this name easier to understand.

wpmobilebot · 2026-01-23T09:02:04Z

📊 Performance Test Results

Comparing 214cd88 vs trunk

site-editor

Metric	trunk	`214cd88`	Diff	Change
load	2894.00 ms	2910.00 ms	+16.00 ms	🔴 0.6%

site-startup

Metric	trunk	`214cd88`	Diff	Change
siteCreation	7085.00 ms	7086.00 ms	+1.00 ms	🔴 0.0%
siteStartup	3922.00 ms	3923.00 ms	+1.00 ms	🔴 0.0%

Results are median values from multiple test runs.

Legend: 🟢 Improvement (faster) | 🔴 Regression (slower) | ⚪ No change

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-23T09:29:27Z

src/modules/cli/lib/windows-installation-manager.ts

-			if ( this.isStudioCliInPath( currentPath ) ) {
-				return;
-			}


This check is redundant. Better to do this before calling WindowsCliInstallationManager::installPath

I take it back. Without this check, we might install the same path multiple times

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-23T10:02:25Z

src/modules/cli/lib/windows-installation-manager.ts

-		if ( await this.isCliInstalled() ) {
+		if ( await this.isStudioCliDirInPath() ) {


This is really the core change I made: instead of checking both whether the CLI path is added to the registry PATH and whether the CLI path exists, we only check the registry PATH.

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-23T10:03:08Z

src/modules/cli/lib/windows-installation-manager.ts

-			// Return true if we are running the development version of the app and the production CLI is installed
-			if ( process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production' && process.env.LOCALAPPDATA ) {
-				const prodStudioCliDir = path.join( process.env.LOCALAPPDATA, 'studio', 'bin' );
-				if ( this.isStudioCliInPath( currentPath, prodStudioCliDir ) ) {
-					return true;
-				}
-			}


I moved this logic to the isStudioCliDirInPath method.

ivan-ottinger

Thank you for including detailed description and comments in the code. That helped.

The changes look good to me and testing steps work as expected. CLI stayed operational after app update. I did not observe any regressions.

ivan-ottinger · 2026-01-23T10:52:00Z

~~Wait, I just realized I tested with incorrect dev build.~~

Update: Sorry, false alarm, I just got confused by the version in the About window. All is good. 👍🏼

gcsecsey

The changes make sense to me, but I ran into an issue when testing this on Parallels.

After following these steps:

Installed Studio 1.6.8 release
Installed the CLI through the modal
Checked that the C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin directory is appended to PATH and that the studio command works
Installed the dev build
Checked the CLI status on the modal

I can see the modal showing CLI as not installed. However, clicking the "Command Prompt" button then invoking studio command works as expected, the C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin still exists and it's in PATH.

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-23T12:01:11Z

Hmm, let me test that same flow to check, @gcsecsey

gcsecsey · 2026-01-23T12:01:59Z

The changes make sense to me, but I ran into an issue when testing this on Parallels.

After following these steps:

Installed Studio 1.6.8 release

Installed the CLI through the modal

Checked that the C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin directory is appended to PATH and that the studio command works

Installed the dev build

Checked the CLI status on the modal

I can see the modal showing CLI as not installed. However, clicking the "Command Prompt" button then invoking studio command works as expected, the C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\studio\bin still exists and it's in PATH.

I installed the dev build using the .appx image, maybe that's the issue? I can see in my PATH that it has populated some new directories:

PS C:\Users\gcsecsey> $env:Path
C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\fnm_multishells\10092_1769169635781;C:\Program Files\Parallels\Parallels Tools\Applications;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin;C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\Programs\cursor\resources\app\bin;C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\22490Automattic.StudiobyWordPress.com_1.6.3.0_arm64__9qb1eemr42qj0\bin;C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\Programs\Warp\bin;C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\studio\bin;C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\22490Automattic.StudiobyWordPress.com_1.6.8.0_arm64__9qb1eemr42qj0\bin;C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\22490Automattic.StudiobyWordPress.com_1.6.8.0_arm64__9qb1eemr42qj0\bin;C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\22490Automattic.StudiobyWordPress.com_1.6.8.0_arm64__9qb1eemr42qj0\bin
PS C:\Users\gcsecsey> ls C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\studio\bin


    Directory: C:\Users\gcsecsey\AppData\Local\studio\bin


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-a----        23/01/2026     11:52             62 studio.bat

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-23T12:34:03Z

We're investigating the issue @gcsecsey uncovered here ☝️

It doesn't seem related to the changes in this PR, though, so we're landing this first and potentially following up with another PR for the AppX issue.

Make Windows CLI installation tolerate app updates

86257fe

fredrikekelund requested a review from a team January 23, 2026 08:48

fredrikekelund self-assigned this Jan 23, 2026

fredrikekelund commented Jan 23, 2026

View reviewed changes

Clean up logic, fix tests

ac7012f

fredrikekelund commented Jan 23, 2026

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Add proper test mock

1ba4754

fredrikekelund commented Jan 23, 2026

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fredrikekelund mentioned this pull request Jan 23, 2026

Fix Windows terminal not finding Studio CLI in PATH #2462

Merged

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ivan-ottinger approved these changes Jan 23, 2026

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gcsecsey reviewed Jan 23, 2026

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fredrikekelund added 4 commits January 23, 2026 13:13

Merge branch 'trunk' into f26d/stu-1246-fix-window-cli-installer-update

16ca31a

Uppercase

bbffa38

Fix

47f6c07

Don't double install path

214cd88

fredrikekelund merged commit 4786ef4 into trunk Jan 23, 2026
9 of 10 checks passed

fredrikekelund deleted the f26d/stu-1246-fix-window-cli-installer-update branch January 23, 2026 12:34

fredrikekelund mentioned this pull request Jan 23, 2026

Always use LOCALAPPDATA to generate Windows CLI install path #2465

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		if ( await this.isCliInstalled() ) {
		if ( await this.isStudioCliDirInPath() ) {

Make Windows CLI installation tolerate app reinstalls #2463

Make Windows CLI installation tolerate app reinstalls #2463

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