Drag & Drop Folder to Elevated Terminal Not Working #22394

Open
opened 2026-01-31 08:11:57 +00:00 by claunia · 0 comments
Owner

Originally created by @arpan3t on GitHub (Oct 14, 2024).

Windows Terminal version

1.20.11781.0

Windows build number

10.0.19045

Other Software

No response

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open Windows Terminal as administrator.
  2. Open File Explorer (explorer.exe) to a directory that contains a subdirectory.
  3. Drag subdirectory from File Explorer to elevated Windows Terminal new tab icon.

Expected Behavior

New tab using default profile should open with the working directory of the subdirectory that was dragged over, as detailed here.

Actual Behavior

🚫Windows Unavailable mouse pointer icon is displayed, and dropping the folder does nothing.

Tried launching explorer.exe from the same elevated Windows Terminal but get the same results. Looks like the drag & drop feature only works for non-elevated Windows Terminal processes, which does work in the same environment btw. Not sure if this is intentional to prevent some sort of privilege escalation scenario or something, but it's not a deal imo. Just saw the feature in the documentation, but I doubt I'd use it regularly. Maybe just add a note to the documentation that it only works in non-elevated Windows Terminals.

Originally created by @arpan3t on GitHub (Oct 14, 2024). ### Windows Terminal version 1.20.11781.0 ### Windows build number 10.0.19045 ### Other Software _No response_ ### Steps to reproduce 1. Open Windows Terminal as administrator. 2. Open File Explorer (explorer.exe) to a directory that contains a subdirectory. 3. Drag subdirectory from File Explorer to elevated Windows Terminal new tab icon. ### Expected Behavior New tab using default profile should open with the working directory of the subdirectory that was dragged over, as detailed [here](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/tips-and-tricks#drag-and-drop-filefolder-to-open). ### Actual Behavior 🚫Windows Unavailable mouse pointer icon is displayed, and dropping the folder does nothing. Tried launching explorer.exe from the same elevated Windows Terminal but get the same results. Looks like the drag & drop feature only works for non-elevated Windows Terminal processes, which does work in the same environment btw. Not sure if this is intentional to prevent some sort of privilege escalation scenario or something, but it's not a deal imo. Just saw the feature in the documentation, but I doubt I'd use it regularly. Maybe just add a note to the documentation that it only works in non-elevated Windows Terminals.
claunia added the Needs-TriageIssue-Bug labels 2026-01-31 08:11:58 +00:00
Sign in to join this conversation.
1 Participants
Notifications
Due Date
No due date set.
Dependencies

No dependencies set.

Reference: starred/terminal#22394