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Fix why the README avoids curl in the PowerShell install snippet - #50

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mattpodwysocki wants to merge 1 commit into
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Small, standalone correction — unrelated to the Navigation API work in
flight on other branches.

The README's "Download the archive yourself" section said curl "is not
guaranteed to be present" on Windows, justifying Invoke-WebRequest/
Get-FileHash instead. That's not accurate for any remotely current
Windows: curl.exe — real curl, not a shim — has shipped in System32
since Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018).

The actual reason to avoid it is narrower and worth naming precisely:
Windows PowerShell 5.1 (the legacy edition that ships with Windows,
powershell.exe) aliases curl to Invoke-WebRequest, whose flags are
nothing like real curl's — so the commands in that section would silently
run the wrong tool there, even though curl.exe exists right next to it.
PowerShell 7 (pwsh) dropped that alias; curl there calls the real
binary. sha256sum's absence outside WSL/Git Bash was already accurate and
keeps its own sentence.

Verified both claims (Windows 10 1803 shipping curl.exe; 5.1 aliasing curl,
7 not) before writing this, rather than assuming.

Not done

Nothing else in this section needed touching.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

The prior wording said curl "is not guaranteed to be present" on Windows,
which hasn't been true since Windows 10 1803 (April 2018) — curl.exe has
shipped in System32 ever since, real curl, not a shim.

The actual problem is narrower and worth naming precisely: Windows
PowerShell 5.1 (the legacy edition that ships with Windows) aliases `curl`
to Invoke-WebRequest, whose flags are nothing like real curl's, so typing
the commands above there runs the wrong tool silently — even though
curl.exe exists right next to it. PowerShell 7 (pwsh) dropped that alias;
`curl` there calls the real binary. sha256sum's absence is the one claim
that was already accurate, so it keeps its own sentence.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@mattpodwysocki
mattpodwysocki requested a review from a team as a code owner September 24, 2026 20:12
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