Why two folders (bin/cmd)?

[levicki]

Can someone clarify which one of those two is supposed to be added to the PATH for those who want to add it manually and why executables in one have .cmd extension?

[lhecker]

The cmd one is a terrible workaround to an issue with PowerShell:

coreutils/src/pwsh-install-template.ps1

Lines 94 to 99 in 311524b

	# Why .cmd over .exe: PSNativeCommandArgumentPassing = 'Windows' results in a behavior
	# where passing bare quotes to CreateProcess() is impossible. This prevents us from
	# passing "*" as "*" to coreutils and instead will be given as a bare *.
	# This causes it to treat it as a glob pattern. "*.cmd" files however are automatically
	# treated as PSNativeCommandArgumentPassing = 'Legacy', which preserves quotes.
	# It is the only possible workaround and the only way coreutils can work at all.

(In the future this will probably just work in PowerShell with no workarounds.)

So, you'd want to add the bin directory to PATH instead.

[levicki]

@lhecker When I added that to PATH and later tried uninstalling Coreutils the uninstaller failed as described here.