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process.title on Windows returns different value in v24.16.0 vs 24.15.0 #63858
Description
Activity
- changed the title
[-]`process.title()` on Windows returns different value in v24.16.0 vs 24.15.0[/-][+]`process.title` on Windows returns different value in v24.16.0 vs 24.15.0[/+]on Jun 11, 2026 I can reproduce. I used the
msipackages to avoid any interaction withnvm-windowsExecute:
node -p "process.title"Windows 11 25H2
Terminal Node.js 24.15.0 Node.js 24.16.0 Git Bash MINGW64:/c/Users/mikem C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe Windows PowerShell Windows PowerShell C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe PowerShell PowerShell C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe cmd Command Prompt - node -p "process.title" C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe and just for comparison:
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Terminal Node.js 24.15.0 Node.js 24.16.0 bash node node Suspect this is libuv/libuv#5023 included in the libuv update.
Reacted by Mike McCready and Juan JoséConfirmed with bisect to 493ac40e12 from #61829 (which was also landed into Node.js 26.0.0)
Thanks for the detailed check @MikeMcC399. Yes, you are both correct about the reason for this change. However, this is a fix, as what we had before (for a long time) was incorrect, and the Windows implementation is now in line with Linux. I'm aware that when something works in a certain way for a long time, even if it is incorrect, it becomes the accepted and expected behavior, but that doesn't change the fact that it was wrong.
Based on the issue description, it seems the old behavior was used to determine whether Node was running in CMD, PowerShell, etc. While it probably worked in most cases, there were never any guarantees for it (eg. if Window Title was changed before starting node.exe, it could have shown anything).
Reacted by Mike McCreadyThe docs https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v24.x/api/process.html#processtitle don't support the assumption that
process.titlecould be used on Windows to determine which type of terminal window was in use. So probably this should be closed.It does make more sense to me to have the outputs of Windows and Linux aligned.
Reacted by Stefan Stojanovic and Sebastian BeltranSince there was no comment from the issue opener, I'm closing the issue.
Version
v24.16.0
Platform
Subsystem
No response
What steps will reproduce the bug?
STR:
nodeprocess.title, and observe that the result is something like "Windows Powershell".How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?
It happens every time.
What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?
EXPECTED: The output should be "Windows Powershell" as it was in every version prior to this. Otherwise, I'm unsure of how Node running on a Windows machine can know whether it was instantiated in Powershell or CMD.
What do you see instead?
ACTUAL: The output will be the path to 'node.exe'.
Additional information
No response