[Package Issue]: Microsoft.Sysinternals.ProcessExplorer

[jodakar1192]

Please confirm these before moving forward

• I have searched for my issue and not found a work-in-progress/duplicate/resolved issue.
• I have not been informed if the issue is resolved in a preview version of the winget client.

Category of the issue

Installation issue.

Brief description of your issue

I was able to install process explorer however I cannot run it with process-explorer as stated after the installation completes. I had to dig around to find its install location and finally figured out that even though the install directory is added to my path, there is only a single file by the name procexp64.exe in there.

Steps to reproduce

Ran this in Powershell:

> winget install Microsoft.Sysinternals.ProcessExplorer
Found Process Explorer [Microsoft.Sysinternals.ProcessExplorer] Version 17.04
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
Downloading https://live.sysinternals.com/procexp64.exe
  ██████████████████████████████  2.28 MB / 2.28 MB
Successfully verified installer hash
Starting package install...
Path environment variable modified; restart your shell to use the new value.
Command line alias added: "process-explorer"
Successfully installed

Actual behavior

Running procexp64 works.

> process-explorer
process-explorer: The term 'process-explorer' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

Expected behavior

Per the post install instructions, I should be able to run process-explorer to get it to run.

Environment

Windows Package Manager v1.5.1572
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Windows: Windows.Desktop v10.0.22621.1848
System Architecture: X64
Package: Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller v1.20.1572.0

Screenshots and Logs

No response

[krystofkrticka]

You need to restart your shell to apply changes in environment variables as is said after installing the package: "Path environment variable modified; restart your shell to use the new value."

[jodakar1192]

@krystofkrticka Yes I did that. As I mentioned, running procexp64 works (after I restart the shell).

[krystofkrticka]

That's weird because I just tested it using Windows Sandbox and for me process-explorer works just fine.

[krystofkrticka]

It really looks like that refreshing environment variables got somehow stuck for you.

[jodakar1192]

Where is the process-explorer shortcut/alias stored for you? I found this doc describing the implementation of the "portable installer" feature. It says:

Once the portable application is copied to the appropriate install location based on the preferences of the user, a symlink will be created that points to the portable application. The locations where these symlinks will be stored are "%LOCALAPPDATA%/Microsoft/WinGet/Links/"

However, for me, although %LOCALAPPDATA%/Microsoft/WinGet/Packages contains the process explorer install, %LOCALAPPDATA%/Microsoft/WinGet/Links is empty. Not sure if that doc is outdated or something?

[krystofkrticka]

I have it in the same path as you. That's why I tested this in Windows Sandbox to have clean unaltered testing environment. The weird thing is that I have symlink for it in %LOCALAPPDATA%/Microsoft/WinGet/Links/.

[krystofkrticka]

Also sometimes you may need to restart your computer for environment variables to apply, because Windows is notorious for reboots almost everytime you change something.

[Trenly]

It depends on

1. If developer mode is enabled on your machine, and
2. If the install was run as admin

I'll see if I can find documentation as to the exact behavior, but the TL;DR is that if the symlink can't be created in the Links folder, then the exact path to the executable is added to PATH. It's possible that there is a bug in the CLI which might be not renaming the executable if symlink creation fails, but I'd have to look

[jodakar1192]

Ok yeh. I uninstalled and then installed as admin this time and the symlink got created. Running process-explorer now works.

[jodakar1192]

So I suppose we could either close this issue as "expected behavior" or maybe change it to be (as @Trenly stated) that the exe is not getting renamed. Additionally I feel it would be nice to add a note in the CLI that "symlink could not be created cuz not admin mode" for a better user experience.

[jodakar1192]

Especially since it did say "command line alias added" which is actually incorrect.

[krystofkrticka]

Yes, you can close it. I wasn't able to reproduce your issue because I automatically installed it as admin. But I agree that it would be nice it winget notified user that is was't able to create symlink.

[Trenly]

r maybe change it to be (as @Trenly stated) that the exe is not getting renamed

This would probably be the preferred path

[stephengillie]

Feature Request: When the symlink can't be created, display an error to the CLI.

[denelon]

@ryfu-msft thoughts on the best experience we can offer here?

[mdanish-kh]

[Policy] Blocking-Issue

• Related to Portable installers are not renamed in non-symlinked installations winget-cli#3437

[denelon]

I'm going to go ahead and close this issue since we have the one in the comment above for the CLI.