Windows setup blocked by existing config.toml from earlier LM Studio configuration

What version of the Codex App are you using?

Affected desktop and CLI versions were not recorded. This report concerns an earlier failed installation/setup, subsequently resolved by reinstalling.

What subscription do you have?

Not provided.

What platform is your computer?

Windows (exact build at the time of failure not provided).

What issue are you seeing?

Reporting a user-observed installation/setup failure. An earlier Codex installation had been configured to use a local language model through LM Studio. During a new installation/setup, Codex reportedly could not access %USERPROFILE%\.codex\config.toml and could not reconfigure the installation.

The user associates the failure with the existing configuration from the earlier installation. The exact error message and original TOML are unavailable in this report, so a filesystem permission issue, configuration parsing/compatibility issue, or another stale-state problem cannot yet be distinguished. LM Studio is the prior provider/runtime; the exact underlying model is unknown.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

User-reported sequence, not independently reproduced:

1. Have an earlier Codex installation on Windows configured to use LM Studio.
2. Leave the existing %USERPROFILE%\.codex\ directory and config.toml in place.
3. Attempt a new Codex installation/setup.
4. Observe that access to the configuration/reconfiguration is blocked and setup cannot be completed normally.

The original versions, installation commands, configuration contents, and error text were not captured, so these are investigation steps rather than a verified minimal reproduction.

What is the expected behavior?

A new installation/setup should handle an existing provider configuration and allow reconfiguration. If it cannot read or migrate the configuration, it should identify the specific error and offer a targeted recovery path that preserves unrelated user state.

Additional information

The user reports that the following workaround restored operation:

1. Delete the entire %USERPROFILE%\.codex\ directory.
2. Reinstall Codex CLI.
3. Reinstall the Codex desktop app.

Both reinstallations were performed through the command line; the exact commands were not provided. This documents the workaround already performed, not a general recommendation to delete user state.

Because deleting the entire directory and reinstalling were combined, this does not establish that config.toml alone caused the failure. No attempt has been made to recreate the failure in the currently working installation. Please investigate configuration migration/recovery for Windows installations with pre-existing local-provider settings.

Start with the Windows setup paths that read or migrate %USERPROFILE%.codex\config.toml, then reproduce the reported sequence using an existing LM Studio configuration. Capture the exact error and distinguish permission, parsing, compatibility, and stale-state causes; done means setup recovers or reports a targeted recovery path without deleting unrelated user state.