Unable to locate Codex CLI binary on Windows 11
Oct 30, 2026
Are you seeing the "Unable to locate the Codex CLI binary" error when launching the Codex desktop app or running it through PowerShell? Here’s the fix.
Link: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/unable-to-locate-codex-cli-binary-on-windows
00:00 intro
00:10 Check whether Windows can actually find Codex
00:38 Check whether the Windows app actually contains codex.exe
01:05 Set Codex_CLI_Path to the native Codex.exe
01:47 Reinstall the Codex CLI with its Windows dependency
Run :
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm\codex
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm\codex.cmd
$pkg = Get-AppxPackage OpenAI.Codex
Commands:
“$($pkg.InstallLocation)\app\resources\codex.exe” –version
$npmRoot = npm root -g
$npmRoot
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\@openai\codex\node_modules\@openai\codex-win32-x64\vendor\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\bin\codex.exe
npm uninstall -g @openai/codex
npm install -g @openai/codex@latest
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