cygwin zsh first launch : command not found

Question

I just installed cygwin and zsh from the cygwin installer.

I launch C:\cygwin\bin\zsh.exe from the file explorer.

When zsh is launch for the first time, a small configutation is prompted.

I choose the minimal config by choosing : "Exit, creating the file ~/.zshrc containing just a comment. That will prevent this function being run again."

Now trying to use zsh, but I always have the "command not found" error

$ ls
zsh: command not found: ls

I don't understand why zsh can't do anything directly after the first launch. How configure zsh to use all the cygwin bin commands located in the same folder C:\cygwin\bin ?

Answer 1

You need to invoke zsh as a login shell, by passing the --login or -l option. This tells it to source /etc/zprofile, which is where the search PATH is configured. You can do that by creating an Explorer shortcut to zsh.exe and adding the option to the target field.