Cannot Install or Update (First time) - 'mode' not recognised as well as Fatal and Stack trace errors

[ausprog]

Hi, I'm running a windows 7 64bit system, PHP 5.4 (with 5.3 installed, though only 5.4 in system variables) and i have composer on the computer.

However when i try to install my json file (I'm following a tutorial series that got me in this direction) i get this error:

c:\test>composer install
Loading composer repositories with package information
Installing dependencies

• Installing php-activerecord/php-activerecord (dev-master 6f72eb7)
  Cloning 6f72eb7958e7dd18a85b374ee28477de748acbd8
  'mode' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
  operable program or batch file.

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'Undefined offset: 4' in pha
r://C:/composer/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application
.php:852
Stack trace:
#0 phar://C:/composer/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Appli

cation.php(852): Composer\Util\ErrorHandler::handle(8, 'Undefined offse...', 'phar://C:/co
mpo...', 852, Array)
#1 phar://C:/composer/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Appli

cation.php(780): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getTerminalWidth()
#2 phar://C:/composer/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Appli

cation.php(113): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->renderException(Object(RuntimeExce
ption), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\StreamOutput))
#3 phar://C:/composer/composer.phar/src/Composer/Console/Application.php(72): Symfony\Comp

onent\Console\Application->run(NULL, Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput
))
#4 phar://C:/composer/composer.phar/bin/com in phar://C:/composer/composer.phar/vendor/sym

fony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php on line 852

I've looked through Google for a while now and only 1 person (different language) had the issue that was the same as mine, and while he replied how he fixed it I have no way of really understanding what me means (he simply said another script changed the /Bin in PATH or along those lines). there are a few other posts (very few) that are quite similar, but none really reflect a fix for me. I tried changing back to php 5.3 as per another's fix but that failed to work.

Any ideas on how to fix this would be great. It may have everything to do with 'mode' not being recognized, however Google came back with unrelated results for any queries i used relating to that lead.

Hope someone has an idea.
Kind Regards

[Seldaek]

This is a bug in the Symfony Console - see symfony/symfony#5755 for the fix. Once it's merged I'll pull the changes in composer. In the meantime I'm not sure what you can do except fix your PATH environment variable so that "mode" is accessible (most likely C:\Windows\system32 is missing from your PATH).

[Seldaek]

Ok the fix has been merged, if you run composer self-update this should now work fine.

[ausprog]

Fantastic, thanks for the support and helping me fix it up :)