Re: BUG #16080: pg_ctl is failed if a fake cmd.exe exist in thecurrent directory. - Mailing list pgsql-bugs

I do not think this is a bug.  There are probably thousands of ways to
break Postgres by misconfiguring your system, and this is one of 'em.

There is a difference in the behaviour for the WIN32 port. In other platforms execl() is called from "src/bin/pg_ctl/pc_ctl" with the full path ("/bin/sh"), but for WIN32 the function CreateProcessAsUser() calls the CMD command without a path, and this function has a search logic of its own [1].

If even this difference out is of any value I can propose a patch.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/processthreadsapi/nf-processthreadsapi-createprocessasusera