Windows directory creation not supported on this platform

Error message

Windows directory creation not supported on this platform

What it means

The non-Windows windowsPaths implementation of CreateDirectory always returns this error; directory creation via the Windows service path helper is unsupported off-Windows. Fail-fast stub for the cross-platform interface.

Source

Thrown at helper/winsvc/path_nonwindows.go:21

//go:build !windows

package winsvc

import "errors"

func NewWindowsPaths() WindowsPaths {
	return &windowsPaths{}
}

type windowsPaths struct{}

func (w *windowsPaths) Expand(string) (string, error) {
	return "", errors.New("Windows path expansion not supported on this platform")
}

func (w *windowsPaths) CreateDirectory(string, bool) error {
	return errors.New("Windows directory creation not supported on this platform")
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

Use os.MkdirAll on non-Windows platforms instead of the winsvc helper
Guard directory creation with a runtime.GOOS or build-tag check
Route setup through a platform abstraction that picks the correct implementation
Verify which Paths implementation the running binary uses

Example fix

// before
err := paths.CreateDirectory(dir, true)
// after
if runtime.GOOS == "windows" {
  err = paths.CreateDirectory(dir, true)
} else {
  err = os.MkdirAll(dir, 0o755)
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: fallback

Validate before calling

if runtime.GOOS != "windows" {
  err := os.MkdirAll(dir, 0o755)
}

Try / catch

err := paths.CreateDirectory(dir, true)
if err != nil {
  err = os.MkdirAll(dir, 0o755) // portable fallback
}

Prevention

Use os.MkdirAll directly on non-Windows platforms
Abstract directory setup behind a per-platform implementation
GOOS-gate all winsvc filesystem helpers

When it happens

Trigger: Calling windowsPaths.CreateDirectory(path, ...) via the Paths interface on Linux/macOS.

Common situations: Service setup code creating working directories regardless of OS; running Windows service install logic on Unix.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a6479bbdeb4ef30d. Report an issue: GitHub.