[vim/vim] Cannot run external commands in vim through :! (Issue #20608)

[charan]

chrnz008 created an issue (vim/vim#20608)

Steps to reproduce

1. install vim VIM - Vi IMproved 9.2 (2026 Feb 14, compiled Jun 15 2026 23:46:57)
   via winget isntall vim.vim --interactive
2. try to run external programs like curl.exe for eg
   it reports

Screenshot.2026-06-22.232302.png (view on web)

Expected behaviour

expected program should run in an external console or gui terminal based on go-!
sidenote:
it is working fine for cmd commands like dir

Version of Vim

VIM - Vi IMproved 9.2 (2026 Feb 14, compiled Jun 15 2026 23:46:57)

Environment

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26200.8655]
Wezterm
screen-256color
cmd

Logs and stack traces

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[charan]

chrnz008 left a comment (vim/vim#20608)

i tried downgrading the version to 9.2.649 but issue still persists probably a corrupted file, still need help

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[Christian Brabandt]

chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#20608)

it seems curl is not in your $PATH.

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[charan]

chrnz008 left a comment (vim/vim#20608)

C:\Users\chr_58>echo %PATH%
;C:\Program Files\Alacritty\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\Intel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\;C:\Users\chr_58\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin;C:\msys64\usr\bin;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Program Files\WezTerm;C:\Program Files\Neovim\bin;C:\Users\chr_58\.cargo\bin;C:\Users\chr_58\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps

C:\Users\chr_58>where curl
C:\Windows\System32\curl.exe

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[charan]

chrnz008 left a comment (vim/vim#20608)

it is indeed a PATH issue as @chrisbra mentioned.The issue was caused by corrupted PATH entries in the Windows registry, which can be introduced by third-party installers (commonly WinGet, npm, or other package managers) when they programmatically write to the PATH.
Why :! fails in Vim but works in cmd
When a PATH entry contains a literal newline, carriage return, or leading/trailing whitespace, cmd.exe is lenient enough to partially tolerate it

• it may skip the bad entry but continue processing the rest of the PATH, so most commands still work in a normal terminal session.
  Vim however spawns a fresh shell subprocess to run :! commands, passing the PATH through the Windows environment block. The environment block has stricter formatting requirements — a newline character in a PATH value is interpreted as a delimiter between environment variables, not within one. This effectively truncates the PATH at the point of corruption, dropping everything after it, including critical directories like C:\Windows\System32. This is why executables that exist on the system cannot be found inside Vim's :! even though they work fine in cmd.

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