dfx command not working when running Motoko project

Error output when running dfx commands

I’m trying to run a simple Motoko project locally using the DFINITY SDK (dfx), but none of the dfx commands seem to work properly.

I’ve tried running commands like:

dfx start --clean
dfx deploy
dfx canister call backend.greet

but either nothing happens, or I get errors such as:

Error: The replica is not running or responding.
Error: dfx command not recognized
Error: failed with exit status 1

I have already installed the SDK using:

sh -ci "$(curl -fsSL https://smartcontracts.org/install.sh)"

But on Windows PowerShell, I got:

Invoke-WebRequest : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'fsSL'

Then I tried to install it manually and can run dfx --version, but still, my commands don’t execute Motoko files (e.g., main.mo or app.mo).

Here’s my simple Motoko file:

actor Main {
  public query func hello() : async Text {
    "Hello, world!"
  };
};

And my folder structure:

my_project/
├── dfx.json
├── src/
│   └── Main/
│       └── Main.mo

What I’ve tried:

• Reinstalled dfx
• Tried both PowerShell and WSL
• Used dfx start --clean and dfx deploy in different terminals
• Verified that my code compiles in the online Motoko playground

Question:

How can I properly run and test my Motoko file using dfx? Is there a correct setup or environment for Windows / WSL to make this work smoothly?