Ignore stdio on Windows when not waiting for process

sindresorhus · sindresorhus · commit e1af0eeeb238 · 2025-11-12T12:50:47.000+07:00
Previously, when using PowerShell on Windows to open URLs or files without the `wait` option, the parent Node.js process would not exit naturally. Users had to press Ctrl+C to terminate the script. This happened because PowerShell kept stdio streams open, preventing the parent process from exiting even though `subprocess.unref()` was called. Fixes #197
diff --git a/index.js b/index.js
@@ -214,6 +214,11 @@ const baseOpen = async options => {
 
 		// Using Base64-encoded command, accepted by PowerShell, to allow special characters.
 		options.target = Buffer.from(encodedArguments.join(' '), 'utf16le').toString('base64');
+
+		if (!options.wait) {
+			// PowerShell will keep the parent process alive unless stdio is ignored.
+			childProcessOptions.stdio = 'ignore';
+		}
 	} else {
 		if (app) {
 			command = app;
