Codex crashes on startup on Windows when WSL is enabled but no distro is installed

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

Latest version (installed from Microsoft Store)

What subscription do you have?

Individual (ChatGPT)

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Codex crashes immediately on startup with the following error:

An error has occurred
Codex crashed with the following error:

(code=3221225781, signal=null)
Most recent error: None

Environment:

• Windows 10/11
• Codex (latest version from Microsoft Store)
• WSL feature is enabled
• No WSL distributions installed (wsl -l -v shows none)

Steps to reproduce:

1. Enable WSL Windows feature (without installing any distro)
2. Launch Codex
3. Codex crashes immediately

Expected behavior:
Codex should either fall back to native Windows execution (PowerShell) or show a clear error.

Actual behavior:
Codex crashes immediately with no actionable error message.

Additional context:
My codex-global-state.json does not contain any WSL-related settings:

{
"electron-main-window-bounds": {
"x": 744,
"y": 295,
"width": 800,
"height": 600,
"isMaximized": false
}
}

Workaround:
Manually forcing Windows mode fixes the issue:

{
"runCodexInWindowsSubsystemForLinux": false,
"integratedTerminalShell": "powershell"
}

Hypothesis:
Codex detects WSL availability but does not check whether a valid distro is installed, leading to a crash.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) feature
2. Ensure no WSL distributions are installed (wsl -l -v shows none)
3. Start Codex from the desktop or Start menu
4. Codex crashes immediately with exit code 3221225781

What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

Additional information

_No response_