From 8b7071e12e6e9ec9fd726bca74a3ff50d8854ec5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bob Sira <sbobfitz2@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2025 13:07:52 +0100
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Fixed TestMiniPath unit test failure in windows

---
 pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go b/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go
index 6a7cd2750945..979ad0c03511 100644
--- a/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go
+++ b/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go
@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ func MiniPath() string {
 		return filepath.Join(homedir.HomeDir(), ".minikube")
 	}
 	if filepath.Base(minikubeHomeEnv) == ".minikube" {
-		return minikubeHomeEnv
+		// Normalize to platform-specific separators for consistency on Windows.
+		return filepath.Clean(filepath.FromSlash(minikubeHomeEnv))
 	}
 	return filepath.Join(minikubeHomeEnv, ".minikube")
 }

From d6a70e077f39386d5421d6c03a37a22365d21fd2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bob Sira <sbobfitz2@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2025 21:19:16 +0000
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] localpath: early normalize MINIKUBE_HOME in MiniPath

---
 pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go | 12 +++++++-----
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go b/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go
index 979ad0c03511..060a9e8bd73b 100644
--- a/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go
+++ b/pkg/minikube/localpath/localpath.go
@@ -44,13 +44,15 @@ func ConfigFile() string {
 func MiniPath() string {
 	minikubeHomeEnv := os.Getenv(MinikubeHome)
 	if minikubeHomeEnv == "" {
-		return filepath.Join(homedir.HomeDir(), ".minikube")
+		return filepath.Join(filepath.Clean(homedir.HomeDir()), ".minikube")
 	}
-	if filepath.Base(minikubeHomeEnv) == ".minikube" {
-		// Normalize to platform-specific separators for consistency on Windows.
-		return filepath.Clean(filepath.FromSlash(minikubeHomeEnv))
+
+	norm := filepath.Clean(minikubeHomeEnv)
+
+	if filepath.Base(norm) == ".minikube" {
+		return norm
 	}
-	return filepath.Join(minikubeHomeEnv, ".minikube")
+	return filepath.Join(norm, ".minikube")
 }
 
 // MakeMiniPath is a utility to calculate a relative path to our directory.