diff --git a/invokeai/app/services/config.py b/invokeai/app/services/config.py
index c75c0602b1..434ba47fc1 100644
--- a/invokeai/app/services/config.py
+++ b/invokeai/app/services/config.py
@@ -356,7 +356,6 @@ def _find_root() -> Path:
     venv = Path(os.environ.get("VIRTUAL_ENV") or ".")
     if os.environ.get("INVOKEAI_ROOT"):
         root = Path(os.environ.get("INVOKEAI_ROOT")).resolve()
-        os.environ["INVOKEAI_ROOT"] = str(root)  # absolutize it to protect against code doing a cwd()
     elif any([(venv.parent / x).exists() for x in [INIT_FILE, LEGACY_INIT_FILE]]):
         root = (venv.parent).resolve()
     else:
@@ -403,7 +402,7 @@ class InvokeAIAppConfig(InvokeAISettings):
     xformers_enabled    : bool = Field(default=True, description="Enable/disable memory-efficient attention", category='Memory/Performance')
     tiled_decode        : bool = Field(default=False, description="Whether to enable tiled VAE decode (reduces memory consumption with some performance penalty)", category='Memory/Performance')
 
-    root                : Path = Field(default=_find_root(), description='InvokeAI runtime root directory', category='Paths')
+    root                : Path = Field(default=None, description='InvokeAI runtime root directory', category='Paths')
     autoimport_dir      : Path = Field(default='autoimport', description='Path to a directory of models files to be imported on startup.', category='Paths')
     lora_dir            : Path = Field(default=None, description='Path to a directory of LoRA/LyCORIS models to be imported on startup.', category='Paths')
     embedding_dir       : Path = Field(default=None, description='Path to a directory of Textual Inversion embeddings to be imported on startup.', category='Paths')
@@ -475,6 +474,7 @@ class InvokeAIAppConfig(InvokeAISettings):
             root = Path(self.root).expanduser().absolute()
         else:
             root = self.find_root()
+        self.root = root  # insulate ourselves from relative paths that may change
         return root
 
     @property
diff --git a/tests/test_config.py b/tests/test_config.py
index 5d3dc46aa4..a84af80eb9 100644
--- a/tests/test_config.py
+++ b/tests/test_config.py
@@ -84,6 +84,20 @@ def test_env_override():
     assert conf.max_cache_size == 20
 
 
+def test_root_resists_cwd():
+    previous = os.environ["INVOKEAI_ROOT"]
+    cwd = Path(os.getcwd()).resolve()
+
+    os.environ["INVOKEAI_ROOT"] = "."
+    conf = InvokeAIAppConfig.get_config()
+    conf.parse_args([])
+    assert conf.root_path == cwd
+
+    os.chdir(previous)
+    assert conf.root_path == cwd
+    os.environ["INVOKEAI_ROOT"] = previous
+
+
 def test_type_coercion():
     conf = InvokeAIAppConfig().get_config()
     conf.parse_args(argv=["--root=/tmp/foobar"])