[Windows] Computer Use list_windows fails with spawn EPERM before enumeration

Open 💬 1 comment Opened Aug 7, 2026 by greedyayo
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

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

26.730.8199.0

What subscription do you have?

Pro plan

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

The Computer Use plugin cannot initialize on Windows. Calling sky.list_windows() fails immediately with:

Error: spawn EPERM
Code: EPERM

No windows are returned and no app-approval prompt appears. The failure occurs before desktop enumeration, so it is not specific to any target application.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Feedback ID: 019fdba3-b267-7092-9137-8119fb05e67f

What is the expected behavior?

sky.list_windows() should return the currently available Windows application windows (or a normal permission prompt/error that identifies a specific denied app). Computer Use should then be able to select an approved target window.

Additional information

Environment and diagnostics:

  • Bundled Computer Use runtime: @oai/sky 0.6.2
  • Microsoft Store package: OpenAI.Codex_26.730.8199.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
  • Windows reports the package status as OK
  • The failure also occurs when the same Computer Use JavaScript session tries to spawn a harmless cmd.exe process: spawnSync ... EPERM
  • No matching Windows Defender, AppLocker, or Code Integrity block event was found
  • The Computer Use runtime directory has Read & Execute permission

Troubleshooting already completed:

  • Fully quit and restarted ChatGPT/Codex
  • Retested from fresh Computer Use sessions
  • Reset the Windows app
  • Successfully re-registered the AppX package
  • Retested after launching ChatGPT/Codex as administrator

The error remained unchanged after every step.

View original on GitHub ↗

1 Comment

github-actions[bot] contributor · 21 days ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

  • #37415
  • #37293
  • #37284
  • #37272

Powered by Codex Action