Can’t use zef on windows?

[coke]

I know this works elsewhere, but I have a windows 11 Pro VM where I’ve installed rakubrew to use in powershell.

I’ve done rakubrew download moar 2025.11, and gotten a raku to use.

Then rakubrew build-zef… which gives me a zef, but…

any invocation of simply zef (including installs, help, etc.) just returns a prompt.

I was only able to successfully execute zef commands with raku C:\…path\to\zef.raku - then it worked.

Happy to help debug, but not sure what info will help.

[patrickbkr]

Do you happen to have a space in the path to zef.exe? If so then this issue is probably fixed by rakudo/rakudo#6024 which should be part of rakudo 2025.12.

[patrickbkr]

Just for info: rakubrew build-zef is redundant in your case as the rakubrew downloaded rakudos already have a zef included.

[coke]

Just removed C:\rakubrew

next powershell complained because rakubrew was missing, correctly.

Re-ran

PS C:\Windows\system32> . {iwr -useb https://rakubrew.org/install-on-powershell.ps1 } | iex

Re-launched powershell, no complaints.

PS C:\Windows\system32> rakubrew download moar 2025.11
PS C:\Windows\system32> raku —version # wrong code page, but output acceptable otherwise
PS C:\Windows\system32> zef
PS C:\Windows\system32>

At this point, zef is in the same bad state. it runs, doesn’t error out, but does nothing.

PS C:\Windows\system32> get-command zef

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Application     zef.exe                                            0.0.0.0    C:\rakubrew\versions\m...
PS C:\Windows\system32> dir C:\rakubrew\versions\moar-2025.11\share\perl6\site\bin\


    Directory: C:\rakubrew\versions\moar-2025.11\share\perl6\site\bin


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM          18083 zef-j.exe
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM             72 zef-j.raku
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM          18087 zef-js.exe
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM             72 zef-js.raku
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM          18083 zef-m.exe
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM             72 zef-m.raku
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM          18075 zef.exe
-a----        11/24/2025   4:47 PM             72 zef.raku
PS C:\Windows\system32> C:\rakubrew\versions\moar-2025.11\share\perl6\site\bin\zef.exe
PS C:\Windows\system32> raku C:\rakubrew\versions\moar-2025.11\share\perl6\site\bin\zef.raku
Zef - Raku Module Management

USAGE

    zef [flags|options] command [args]

    zef —version
...

The first run seems to take a few seconds, I assume there’s some compiling going on. But the other invocations of zef still generate no output, the only way it’s working is by calling the full path to the zef.raku

[coke]

More data: same problem with 2025.08; however, zef works with 2024.12

[coke]

Bisected: last good version was 2025.05 - there is no .06 or .07, and .08 doesn’t work.

[patrickbkr]

Yeah, pretty sure it's the new script wrappers. I'll try to reproduce the issue. I'll report back.