Environment variables are not expanded

[anthonyvdotbe]

Type: Bug

With 2 environment variables as follows:

JAVA_HOME = %JAVA_HOME_DEFAULT%
JAVA_HOME_DEFAULT=C:\path\to\directory

and these VS Code settings:

{
    "terminal.explorerKind": "external",
    "terminal.external.windowsExec": "wt"
}

then when I do Open in Windows Terminal and type echo $Env:JAVA_HOME (with PowerShell 7.3.1 being my default profile in Windows Terminal), the output is %JAVA_HOME_DEFAULT%.

However, when I open Windows Terminal outside of VS Code and type the same, the output is correct: C:\path\to\directory.

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.75.0-insider (6ed4d43, 2022-12-23T05:21:57.802Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22621
Modes:
Sandboxed: Yes

Extensions: none

A/B Experiments

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[Tyriar]

When I set environment variables that equal others, they get automatically resolved via the environment variable window. I set TEST_VAR1 to %TEST_VAR2% and this is what happened:

How are you setting JAVA_HOME in this case?

[anthonyvdotbe]

In PowerShell 7.3.1 I do:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('TEST_VAR1', 'foo', 'User')
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('TEST_VAR2', '%TEST_VAR1%', 'User')

Then in the environment variable window the result is:

[anthonyvdotbe]

@Tyriar the info-needed label can be removed (or further questions asked if my response was unclear)

[Tyriar]

This is working fine for me, whether I run the regular open external command or right click a folder and open in WT:

[anthonyvdotbe]

@Tyriar Here's what I did in a stock Windows Sandbox:

• install PowerShell 7.3.3
• install Windows Terminal v1.16.1026
• download the x64 .zip of VS Code Insiders (Version: 1.76.0-insider Commit: 92da948), unzip, and create a folder named data in it
• open PowerShell and run the following 2 commands:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('TEST_VAR1', 'foo', 'User')
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('TEST_VAR2', '%TEST_VAR1%', 'User')

• open VS Code and change the configuration:

{
    "terminal.explorerKind": "external",
    "terminal.external.windowsExec": "wt"
}

• in VS Code, Open Folder -> Downloads, right-click the VS Code .zip I downloaded earlier, choose Open in Windows Terminal
• in the opened Terminal, run:

echo $Env:TEST_VAR2

which gives: %TEST_VAR1%

[anthonyvdotbe]

Just found out the exact same thing happens in VS Code's terminal. To reproduce I downloaded the current insiders version (1.78.0-insider f31dffc), opened an internal terminal, typed echo $Env:JAVA_HOME and got %JAVA_HOME_DEFAULT% as output.

@Tyriar have you already tried with the reproduction steps in my previous comment? And is there anything else I can do to move this issue forward?

[anthonyvdotbe]

When using an external terminal, this is due to an issue in Windows Terminal.
However, the same issue occurs when using an internal terminal.

[Tyriar]

Looks like the upstream problem is fixed. It will come through to us eventually, it's shipped with Windows though so it's quite a slow process.