Powershell not launching in VS Code for some reason
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Tech stack
- powershell, typescript, vscode
- Domain
- developer-experience, devtools
Research direction
Start with docs/troubleshooting.md and reproduce the failure in VS Code using PowerShell 7.6.1, VS Code 1.118.0, and extension 2025.4.0. Investigate why launching a terminal or PowerShell does not work, gathering the missing logs and narrowing the failure to the extension; done means PowerShell launches successfully in VS Code.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Prerequisites
- I have written a descriptive issue title.
- I have searched all open and closed issues to ensure it has not already been reported.
- I have read the troubleshooting guide.
- I am sure this issue is with the extension itself and does not reproduce in a standalone PowerShell instance.
- I have verified that I am using the latest version of Visual Studio Code and the PowerShell extension.
- If this is a security issue, I have read the security issue reporting guidance.
Summary
Powershell normally runs correctly in VS Code. Supposed to work. I have Powershell 7.6.x versions, so should be using that as much as possible.
PowerShell Version
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 7.6.1
PSEdition Core
GitCommitId 7.6.1
OS Microsoft Windows 10.0.26200
Platform Win32NT
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0.}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.4
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion 3.0
Visual Studio Code Version
1.118.0
x64
Extension Version
ms-vscode.powershell@2025.4.0
Steps to Reproduce
Just try to launch anything with terminal or powershell in VS Code.
Visuals
No response
Logs
No response
- Dominant language
- TypeScript
- Stars
- 1.9k
- Forks
- 548
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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