How to set path on windows

asked Mar 3, 2012 at 12:58

Option 1

After you change PATH with the GUI, close and reopen the console window.

This works because only programs started after the change will see the new PATH.

Option 2

This option only affects your current shell session, not the whole system. Execute this command in the command window you have open:

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\your\path\here\

This command appends C:\your\path\here\ to the current PATH. If your path includes spaces, you do not need to include quote marks.

Breaking it down:

• set – A command that changes cmd’s environment variables only for the current cmd session; other programs and the system are unaffected.
• PATH= – Signifies that PATH is the environment variable to be temporarily changed.
• %PATH%;C:\your\path\here\ – The %PATH% part expands to the current value of PATH, and ;C:\your\path\here\ is then concatenated to it. This becomes the new PATH.

WARNING: This solution may be destructive to your PATH, and the stability of your system. As a side effect, it will merge your user and system PATH, and truncate PATH to 1024 characters. The effect of this command is irreversible. Make a backup of PATH first. See the comments for more information.

Don’t blindly copy-and-paste this. Use with caution.

You can permanently add a path to PATH with the setx command:

setx /M path "%path%;C:\your\path\here\"

Remove the /M flag if you want to set the user PATH instead of the system PATH.

Notes:

• The setx command is only available in Windows 7 and later.

• You should run this command from an elevated command prompt.

• If you only want to change it for the current session, use set.

This only modifies the registry. An existing process won’t use these values. A new process will do so if it is started after this change and doesn’t inherit the old environment from its parent.

You didn’t specify how you started the console session. The best way to ensure this is to exit the command shell and run it again. It should then inherit the updated PATH environment variable.

You don’t need any set or setx command. Simply open the terminal and type:

PATH

This shows the current value of PATH variable. Now you want to add directory to it? Simply type:

PATH %PATH%;C:\xampp\php

If for any reason you want to clear the PATH variable (no paths at all or delete all paths in it), type:

PATH ;

Update

Like Danial Wilson noted in comment below, it sets the path only in the current session. To set the path permanently, use setx but be aware, although that sets the path permanently, but not in the current session, so you have to start a new command line to see the changes. More information is here.

To check if an environmental variable exist or see its value, use the ECHO command:

echo %YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE%

I would use PowerShell instead!

To add a directory to PATH using PowerShell, do the following:

$PATH = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH")
$xampp_path = "C:\xampp\php"
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", "$PATH;$xampp_path")

To set the variable for all users, machine-wide, the last line should be like:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", "$PATH;$xampp_path", "Machine")

In a PowerShell script, you might want to check for the presence of your C:\xampp\php before adding to PATH (in case it has been previously added). You can wrap it in an if conditional.

So putting it all together:

$PATH = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", "Machine")
$xampp_path = "C:\xampp\php"
if( $PATH -notlike "*"+$xampp_path+"*" ){
    [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", "$PATH;$xampp_path", "Machine")
}

Better still, one could create a generic function. Just supply the directory you wish to add:

function AddTo-Path{
param(
    [string]$Dir
)

    if( !(Test-Path $Dir) ){
        Write-warning "Supplied directory was not found!"
        return
    }
    $PATH = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", "Machine")
    if( $PATH -notlike "*"+$Dir+"*" ){
        [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", "$PATH;$Dir", "Machine")
    }
}

You could make things better by doing some polishing. For example, using Test-Path to confirm that your directory actually exists.

Safer SETX

Nod to all the comments on the @Nafscript’s initial SETX answer.

• SETX by default will update your user path.
• SETX ... /M will update your system path.
• %PATH% contains the system path with the user path appended

Warnings

1. Backup your PATH — SETX will truncate your junk longer than 1024 characters
2. Don’t call SETX %PATH%;xxx — adds the system path into the user path
3. Don’t call SETX %PATH%;xxx /M — adds the user path into the system path
4. Excessive batch file use can cause blindness¹

The ss64 SETX page has some very good examples. Importantly it points to where the registry keys are for SETX vs SETX /M

User Variables:

HKCU\Environment

System Variables:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

Usage instructions

Append to User PATH

append_user_path.cmd

@ECHO OFF
REM usage: append_user_path "path"
SET Key="HKCU\Environment"
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=2*" %%A IN (`REG QUERY %Key% /v PATH`) DO Set CurrPath=%%B
ECHO %CurrPath% > user_path_bak.txt
SETX PATH "%CurrPath%";%1

Append to System PATH

append_system_path.cmd. Must be run as administrator.

(It’s basically the same except with a different Key and the SETX /M modifier.)

@ECHO OFF
REM usage: append_system_path "path"
SET Key="HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment"
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=2*" %%A IN (`REG QUERY %Key% /v PATH`) DO Set CurrPath=%%B
ECHO %CurrPath% > system_path_bak.txt
SETX PATH "%CurrPath%";%1 /M

Alternatives

Finally there’s potentially an improved version called SETENV recommended by the ss64 SETX page that splits out setting the user or system environment variables.

Example

Here’s a full example that works on Windows 7 to set the PATH environment variable system wide. The example detects if the software has already been added to the PATH before attempting to change the value. There are a number of minor technical differences from the examples given above:

@echo off
set OWNPATH=%~dp0
set PLATFORM=mswin

if defined ProgramFiles(x86)                        set PLATFORM=win64
if "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%"=="AMD64"              set PLATFORM=win64
if exist "%OWNPATH%tex\texmf-mswin\bin\context.exe" set PLATFORM=mswin
if exist "%OWNPATH%tex\texmf-win64\bin\context.exe" set PLATFORM=win64

rem Check if the PATH was updated previously
echo %PATH% | findstr "texmf-%PLATFORM%" > nul

rem Only update the PATH if not previously updated
if ERRORLEVEL 1 (
  set Key="HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment"
  for /F "USEBACKQ tokens=2*" %%A in (`reg query %%Key%% /v PATH`) do (
    if not "%%~B" == "" (
      rem Preserve the existing PATH
      echo %%B > currpath.txt

      rem Update the current session
      set PATH=%PATH%;%OWNPATH%tex\texmf-%PLATFORM%\bin
      
      rem Persist the PATH environment variable
      setx PATH "%%B;%OWNPATH%tex\texmf-%PLATFORM%\bin" /M
    )
  )
)

^{1. Not strictly true}

Handy if you are already in the directory you want to add to PATH:

set PATH=%PATH%;%CD%

It works with the standard Windows cmd, but not in PowerShell.

For PowerShell, the %CD% equivalent is [System.Environment]::CurrentDirectory.

Aside from all the answers, if you want a nice GUI tool to edit your Windows environment variables you can use Rapid Environment Editor.

Try it! It’s safe to use and is awesome!

answered Sep 6, 2016 at 14:37

Use pathed from gtools.

It does things in an intuitive way. For example:

pathed /REMOVE "c:\my\folder"
pathed /APPEND "c:\my\folder"

It shows results without the need to spawn a new cmd!

Checking the above suggestions on Windows 10 LTSB, and with a glimpse on the «help» outlines (that can be viewed when typing ‘command /?’ on the cmd), brought me to the conclusion that the PATH command changes the system environment variable Path values only for the current session, but after reboot all the values reset to their default- just as they were prior to using the PATH command.

On the other hand using the SETX command with administrative privileges is way more powerful. It changes those values for good (or at least until the next time this command is used or until next time those values are manually GUI manipulated… ).

The best SETX syntax usage that worked for me:

SETX PATH "%PATH%;C:\path\to\where\the\command\resides"

where any equal sign ‘=’ should be avoided, and don’t you worry about spaces! There isn’t any need to insert any more quotation marks for a path that contains spaces inside it — the split sign ‘;’ does the job.

The PATH keyword that follows the SETX defines which set of values should be changed among the System Environment Variables possible values, and the %PATH% (the word PATH surrounded by the percent sign) inside the quotation marks, tells the OS to leave the existing PATH values as they are and add the following path (the one that follows the split sign ‘;’) to the existing values.

Regarding point 2, I’m using a simple batch file that is populating PATH or other environment variables for me. Therefore, there isn’t any pollution of environment variables by default. This batch file is accessible from everywhere so I can type:

mybatchfile

Output:

-- Here all environment variables are available

And:

php file.php

answered Jun 5, 2021 at 13:42

Use these commands in the Bash shell on Windows to append a new location to the PATH variable

PATH=$PATH:/path/to/mydir

Or prepend this location

PATH=/path/to/mydir:$PATH

In your case, for instance, do

PATH=$PATH:C:\xampp\php

You can echo $PATH to see the PATH variable in the shell.

answered Oct 17, 2018 at 2:06

answered Dec 21, 2016 at 1:08

A better alternative to Control Panel is to use this freeware program from SourceForge called Pathenator.

However, it only works for a system that has .NET 4.0 or greater such as Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10.

As trivial as it may be, I had to restart Windows when faced with this problem.

I am running Windows 7 x64. I did a manual update to the system PATH variable. This worked okay if I ran cmd.exe from the stat menu. But if I type «cmd» in the Windows Explorer address bar, it seems to load the PATH from elsewhere, which doesn’t have my manual changes.

(To avoid doubt — yes, I did close and rerun cmd a couple of times before I restarted and it didn’t help.)

answered Oct 24, 2018 at 20:50

JaninJanin

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