How do I add to the Windows PATH variable using setx Having weird problems

Question

I want to modify the Windows PATH variable using setx  The following works at least 50  of the time on Windows 8   setx PATH  PATH  C  Python27  C  Python27 Scripts    If it gives the error  the default argument can only be used 2 times   then the following works some of the time   setx PATH   PATH  C  Python27  C  Python27 Scripts     The difference is that we wrapped the second argument in quotes  I believe the quotes are necessary when  PATH  expands to include spaces   However  I have encountered some weird problems on Windows 7  On one particular Windows 7 machine  I had this problem   echo  PATH    It prints   C  Foo  C  Bar      lots of stuff    C  Baz    Then I do this   setx PATH   PATH  C  Quux     Then it says  Error  Truncated at 1 024 characters   Now let s check what PATH contains   echo  PATH    It prints   C  Foo  C  Foo  C  Bar  C  Bar      lots of stuff  now duplicated    C  B      and it is cut off at 1 024 characters  It ran over because of the duplicates  Also interesting  The value of PATH changes despite the fact that setx raised an error and did not say  Success    I was able to repeat this strange behavior several times  luckily I had saved the original contents of PATH    At the moment  the only surefire way I know to append to the PATH is the following    echo the PATH  Copy the contents of PATH into a text file and manually add  C  Python27  C  Python27 Scripts  to the end of the PATH  Copy the whole thing out of the text file  setx PATH   lt paste the string here gt     That process works every single time on both Windows 7 and Windows 8   I should really be able to do this in one command  What am I doing wrong   Thank you

User · Answer

If you re not beholden to setx  you can use an alternate command line tool like pathed  There s a more comprehensive list of alternative PATH editors at https   superuser com questions 297947 is-there-a-convenient-way-to-edit-path-in-windows-7 655712 655712  You can also edit the registry value directly  which is what setx does  More in this answer    It s weird that your  PATH  is getting truncated at 1024 characters  I thought setx didn t have that problem  Though you should probably clean up the invalid path entries

User · Answer

setx path  quot  PATH   C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Office root Office16 quot   m  This should do the appending to the System Environment Variable Path without any extras added  and keeping the original intact without any loss of data  I have used this command to correct the issue that McAfee s Web Control does to Microsoft s Outlook desktop client  The quotations are used in the path value because command line sees spaces as a delimiter  and will attempt to execute next value in the command line  The quotations override this behavior and handles everything inside the quotations as a string

User · Answer

This vbscript batch hybrid  append sys path vbs  is not intuitive but works perfectly   If CreateObject  WScript Shell   Run   ComSpec   C   NET FILE     0  True   lt  gt  0 Then     CreateObject  Shell Application   ShellExecute WScript FullName        amp  WScript ScriptFullName  amp           runas   5     WScript Quit End If Set Shell   CreateObject  WScript Shell   Cmd   Shell Exec   ComSpec   C   REG QUERY   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control Session Manager Environment    v Path   FINDSTR  I  C   REG SZ    C   REG EXPAND SZ       StdOut ReadAll Cmd         amp  Trim Replace Mid Cmd  InStr 1  Cmd    SZ   VBTextCompare    3   vbCrLf       If Right Cmd  1   lt  gt      Then Cmd   Cmd  amp      Cmd     ComSpec   C   REG ADD   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control Session Manager Environment    v Path  t REG EXPAND SZ  d    amp  Replace Cmd  amp    SystemDrive  Python27  SystemDrive  Python27 Scripts    f                   Shell Run Cmd  0  True   Advantages of this approach   1  It doesn t truncate the system path environment at 1024 characters  2  It doesn t concatenate the system and user path environment  3  It s automatically run as administrator  4  Preserve the percentages in the system path environment  5  Supports spaces  parentheses and special characters  6  Works on Windows 7 and above

User · Answer

I was facing the same problems and found a easy solution now   Using pathman   pathman  as  M2    Adds for example  M2  to the system path  Nothing more and nothing less  No more problems getting a mixture of user PATH and system PATH  No more hardly trying to get the correct values from registry     Tried at Windows 10

User · Answer

Run cmd as administrator  then   setx  M PATH   PATH   lt your-new-path gt     The  M option sets the variable at SYSTEM scope  The default behaviour is to set it for the USER   TL DR  The truncation issue happens because when you echo  PATH  it will show the concatenation of SYSTEM and USER values  So when you add it in your second argument to setx  it will be fitting SYSTEM and USER values inside the USER var  When you echo again  things will be doubled   Additionally  the  M option requires administrator privilege  so you need to open your terminal with  run as administrator   otherwise setx will complain with  access to registry path is denied    Last thing to note  You won t see the new value when you echo  PATH  just after setting it this way  you need to close cmd and open again   If you want to check the actual values stored in registry check this question

User · Answer

Without admin rights the only way that worked for me is a bat file that contains the following code   for  F  tokens 2  delims      f IN   reg query HKCU Environment  v PATH    findstr  i path   do set OLD SYSTEM PATH   g setx PATH   USERPROFILE  wev-tools  OLD SYSTEM PATH     The code is the combination of the answers https   stackoverflow com a 45566845 4717152 and https   stackoverflow com a 10292113 4717152

User · Answer

Steps  1  Open a command prompt with administrator s rights   Steps  2  Run the command       setx  M PATH  path to  PATH     Note  Be sure to alter the command so that path to reflects the folder path from your root    Example    setx  M PATH  C  Program Files  PATH

User · Answer

If someone want to run it in PowerShell it works like below   Run Powershell as Administrator   Then  setx  M PATH   Env PATH  lt path to add gt     To verify  open another Powershell and view PATH as below    Env PATH

User · Answer

Sadly with OOTB tools  you cannot append either the system path or user path directly easily    If you want to stick with OOTB tools  you have to query either the SYSTEM or USER path  save that value as a variable  then appends your additions and save it using setx    The two examples below show how to retrieve either  save them  and append your additions   Don t get mess with  PATH   it is a concatenation of USER SYSTEM  and will cause a lot of duplication in the result   You have to split them as shown below     Append to System PATH  for  f  usebackq tokens 2     A in   reg query  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control Session Manager Environment   v PATH   do set SYSPATH  B  setx PATH   SYSPATH  C  path1 C  path2   M   Append to User PATH  for  f  usebackq tokens 2     A in   reg query HKCU Environment  v PATH   do set userPATH  B  setx PATH   userPATH  C  path3 C  path4

User · Answer

This works perfectly   for  f  usebackq tokens 2     A in   reg query HKCU Environment  v PATH   do set my user path  B  setx PATH  C  Python27 C  Python27 Scripts  my user path     The 1st command gets the USER environment variable  PATH   into  my user path  variable The 2nd line prepends the  C  Python27 C  Python27 Scripts   to the USER environment variable  PATH

User · Answer

I was having such trouble managing my computer labs when the  PATH  environment variable approached 1024 characters that I wrote a Powershell script to fix it   You can download the code here  https   gallery technet microsoft com scriptcenter Edit-and-shorten-PATH-37ef3189  You can also use it as a simple way to safely add  remove and parse PATH entries  Enjoy

[windows] How do I add to the Windows PATH variable using setx? Having weird problems

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