"EACCES: permission denied" if additional executable with same name appears on PATH when using @actions/exec

[Vampire]

I use @actions/exec in my setup-wsl GitHub Actions action to do various tool runs.

One of the tools that is run is wsl.
To use WSLv2 on windows-2022 currently, you have to do a wsl --update first.
To use any version of WSLv2 on windows-2025 currently, you have to do a wsl --install --no-distribution first.

Both of these commands add an addtional wsl.exe link to C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps - which is on the PATH - that was not there before.

If you now use exec() to run a wsl command, you always get

Unexpected error attempting to determine if executable file exists 'C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\wsl.EXE': Error: EACCES: permission denied, stat 'C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\wsl.EXE'

spamming the build output.

To reproduce, first do a wsl --update through exec(), then a wsl --status through exec() on a windows-2022 image that does not yet have actions/runner-images#10563 done.