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Restarting an application in the same process doesn't work on Windows

See original GitHub issue

Take a look at my code here:

https://github.com/TylerLeonhardt/GraphicalTools/blob/4c06220400d4f6b64f3231528905753912db6cad/src/Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleGuiTools/ConsoleGui.cs#L23-L88

It’s not too complex it mostly does:

            Application.Init();
            var top = Application.Top;
            top.RemoveAll();

            // Creates the top-level window to show
            var win = new Window(applicationData.Title ?? "Out-ConsoleGridView")
            {
                X = 0,
                Y = 1, // Leave one row for the toplevel menu
                // By using Dim.Fill(), it will automatically resize without manual intervention
                Width = Dim.Fill(),
                Height = Dim.Fill()
            };
            top.Add(win);

            // Creates a menubar, the item "New" has a help menu.
            var menu = new MenuBar(new MenuBarItem []
            {
                new MenuBarItem("_Actions (F9)", 
                    applicationData.PassThru
                    ? new MenuItem []
                    {
                        new MenuItem("_Accept", "", () => { if (Quit("Accept", ACCEPT_TEXT)) top.Running = false; }),
                        new MenuItem("_Cancel", "", () =>{ if (Quit("Cancel", CANCEL_TEXT)) _cancelled = true; top.Running = false; })
                    }
                    : new MenuItem []
                    {
                        new MenuItem("_Close", "", () =>{ if (Quit("Close", CLOSE_TEXT)) top.Running = false; })
                    })
            });
            top.Add(menu);
            // add more stuff to win...

            Application.Run();

This code is run within PowerShell (since you can write PowerShell cmdlets in C#)… so it’s code that gets run in the same .NET process over and over again.

On macOS and Linux, this code works as expected. I can launch it (and quit it) over and over again and it shows the display over and over again.

On Windows, the first time works, but the second time it hangs without any ability to kill what’s running: