diff --git a/src/libutil/windows/environment-variables.cc b/src/libutil/windows/environment-variables.cc
index 525d08c64..5ce8a1395 100644
--- a/src/libutil/windows/environment-variables.cc
+++ b/src/libutil/windows/environment-variables.cc
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ std::optional<OsString> getEnvOs(const OsString & key)
     }
 
     // Allocate a buffer to hold the environment variable value
-    std::wstring value{L'\0', bufferSize};
+    std::wstring value{bufferSize, L'\0'};
 
     // Retrieve the environment variable value
     DWORD resultSize = GetEnvironmentVariableW(key.c_str(), &value[0], bufferSize);