I don't understand where these issues are coming from; we have several developers that use the latest version of Arcanist and libphutil on Windows without issue.

I think what needs to be established:

• How did you install PHP?
• What version of PHP are you using?
• Does Arcanist work fine under msysGit Bash?
• Does Arcanist work fine under Windows Command Prompt?
• Does Arcanist work fine under Windows PowerShell?
• What value do you have for system-wide PATH?
• Is both arc.bat and php.exe in your system-wide PATH?

For reference, this is the Powershell script we use to install Arcanist on developer machines (replace the URL https://code.redpointsoftware.com.au/ with your own instance). On a fresh install of Windows (or an install of Windows that does not have PHP or Arcanist installed), run this under an Administrator Powershell prompt and restart the computer.

Does Arcanist work then?

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'

trap
{
    Write-Host "An error occurred"
    Write-Host $_
    Write-Host $_.Exception.StackTrace
    cd $PSScriptRoot
    exit 1
}

if (!(Test-Path C:\Tools)) {
    mkdir C:\Tools
}
if (!(Test-Path C:\Tools\PHP)) {
    mkdir C:\Tools\PHP
}

pushd C:\Tools
if (!(Test-Path C:\Tools\libphutil)) {
    git clone https://github.com/phacility/libphutil.git
}
if (!(Test-Path C:\Tools\arcanist)) {
    git clone https://github.com/phacility/arcanist.git
}
popd

if (!(Test-Path C:\Tools\PHP.zip)) {
    $releases = wget -Uri http://windows.php.net/downloads/releases/
    if (!($releases.Content -match "php-5.6.[0-9]+\-Win32-VC11-x86.zip")) {
        Write-Error "Unable to find right version of PHP to download (ask June to fix this!)"
        exit 1
    }
    $php = $Matches[0]
    wget -Uri http://windows.php.net/downloads/releases/$php -OutFile C:\Tools\PHP.zip
}

if (!(Test-Path C:\Tools\PHP\php.exe)) {
    $shell = new-object -com shell.application
    $zip = $shell.NameSpace("C:\Tools\PHP.zip")
    foreach($item in $zip.items())
    {
        $shell.Namespace("C:\Tools\PHP").copyhere($item)
    }
}

try {
    $env = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path", [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)
    if (!$env.Contains("C:\Tools\PHP")) {
        $env = ($env + ";C:\Tools\PHP;C:\Tools\arcanist\bin")
        [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env, [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)
        Write-Warning "Re-open this console to use Arcanist"
    }
} catch {
    Write-Warning "You must run this script as Administrator to add Arcanist to your PATH."
}

if (!(Test-Path "C:\Tools\PHP\php.ini")) {
    Copy-Item C:\Tools\PHP\php.ini-development C:\Tools\PHP\php.ini
}

$content = Get-Content -Raw "C:\Tools\PHP\php.ini"
$content = $content.Replace(";extension=php_curl.dll", "extension=ext\php_curl.dll")
Set-Content -Path "C:\Tools\PHP\php.ini" -Value $content

$env:Path += ";C:\Tools\PHP;C:\Tools\Arcanist\bin"
arc set-config editor "\`"C:\Program Files (x86)\GitExtensions\GitExtensions.exe\`" fileeditor"
arc set-config default https://code.redpointsoftware.com.au/
$output = (echo '{}' | arc call-conduit user.whoami)
if ($output -eq $null) {
    arc install-certificate
}

cd $PSScriptRoot

In T8821#125993, @hach-que wrote:

I don't understand where these issues are coming from; we have several developers that use the latest version of Arcanist and libphutil on Windows without issue.

I think what needs to be established:

• How did you install PHP?
• What version of PHP are you using?
• Does Arcanist work fine under msysGit Bash?
• Does Arcanist work fine under Windows Command Prompt?
• Does Arcanist work fine under Windows PowerShell?
• What value do you have for system-wide PATH?
• Is both arc.bat and php.exe in your system-wide PATH?

• I have installed PHP as anyone would; enabling curl and making sure that it is in my PATH.
• Latest, and a few versions back (I have had the same issue on two machines, one home and one at work)
• I do not run msysGit Bash
• I do not run PowerShell
• I have added PHP, Arcanist, GIT etc. to the path, I can execute the commands just fine - only that it does not work past that.
• Yes

To add a little more about my environment. I run Windows 8, and I try to make everything work with Command Prompt (without Administrator prompt). The only real issue with this approach is that there is a limit to the PATH environment string so what I had to do was to shorten all my entries by converting everything to DOS paths.

It worked just fine on my work machine prior to upgrading to the latest version, so I do not think it has anything to do with the rest of my setup. I had the exact same problem on my home machine when I tried to set it up a few weeks ago.

Awesome script, will try to use that next time I setup a new environment, but I have done all those steps - even though I did it manually.

I am only trying to share my findings, I would love to point the finger at myself and have it be an issue that only affected me. But since I did solve it this way, I have seen others with the same issue and the fact that I could reproduce it on another machines I still do believe it is a valid issue to look into.
But, if it turns out to be some configuration step I have missed I would love to pinpoint it and make sure that it ends up in the documentation.

We used the above script to install Arcanist this Friday (2 days ago). If you are running a version near that date or before it, then it's definitely an environment issue as the script works fine.

The only real issue with this approach is that there is a limit to the PATH environment string so what I had to do was to shorten all my entries by converting everything to DOS paths.

This is somewhat concerning; I have no idea what effect this will have.

I do not run msysGit Bash

You'll need Git installed for even the most basic of Arcanist commands to work (how did you clone Arcanist / libphutil without having Git installed?)

In T8821#125997, @hach-que wrote:

We used the above script to install Arcanist this Friday (2 days ago). If you are running a version near that date or before it, then it's definitely an environment issue as the script works fine.

The only real issue with this approach is that there is a limit to the PATH environment string so what I had to do was to shorten all my entries by converting everything to DOS paths.

This is somewhat concerning; I have no idea what effect this will have.

I do not run msysGit Bash

You'll need Git installed for even the most basic of Arcanist commands to work (how did you clone Arcanist / libphutil without having Git installed?)

I have msysGit, just not using its Bash. Like I said, I have been running this fine for well over a year.

Can you try running Arcanist commands under msysGit?

In T8821#125999, @hach-que wrote:

Can you try running Arcanist commands under msysGit?

Not at work so I cannot do that now. I assume also that you mean the Bash environment - and even if it would work there I prefer a solution where I can run it from Command Prompt. Call me a neat freak but I just like not having to rely on too many programs when developing.

The problem is that escaping commands on Windows is thoroughly broken; there is no one solution that will work universally for everyone. Fixing this issue by changing the escaping so that it works under Command Prompt may well break it under msysGit, and it's important to understand in what situations the error occurs so that we don't cause regressions for anyone else.

There's potentially a fix in D10555, which basically gives up on any hope of securely escaping arguments on Windows and just does very basic quote escaping.

Of course, I understand that the solution needs to be done properly in order to not break for others. I like the implementation in the diff you mentioned - it is not pretty but at least we contain the "hacks" in one place for the different environments. And who knows - maybe Windows 10 will give us a proper bash to use so that these problems will be long gone.

Thank you for looking into to this and trying to think of a good solution.

I just ran into the issue with this error on Windows:
Usage Exception: arc diff` is only supported under git, hg, svn.`

I got around it by running arc diff in the root of the repo. Looks like it doesn't work in subdirs due to the walkToRoot issue.