My Web Adventures

A blog for hackers by a dinosaur hacker.

Dealing With the Path in Windows 7. I

The Path environment variable in Windows is always a problem to deal with.

This seems to be the hard way to manage:

You get to open the System Dialog first, which is in the Control Panel.

Control Panel:

Control Panel in Windows 7

Control Panel Search:

If you just type “path” in the search box at the upper right corner, Control Panel items will be filtered as:

Control Panel Search Path in Windows 7

Now you have three options:

  1. If you click on System, you get the System Dialog.

  2. If you click on Edit environment variables for your account, you get the Environment Variables dialog but the System Variables option is disabled, and you can only change the User variables.
    Environment Variables in Windows 7

  3. If you click on Edit the system environment variables option you get the Environment Variables dialog.

Or, if you prefer to right-click on Computer and select Properties, you get the System dialog as well, and now you can just click Change Settings here, then click Environment Variables at the System Properties dialog.

System Dialog:

System Dialog in Windows 7

System Properties:

System Properties Dialog in Windows 7

Environment Variables:

Environment Variables in Windows 7

You have to select the Path variable at the System variables and click the Edit button to finally get to Edit System Variable dialog.

Edit System Variable:

Edit System Variable Dialog in Windows 7

Here you have to edit the Path variable value and click OK, which is terrifying if your Path looks like this:

C:\Python27\;C:\Program Files (x86)\HP SimplePass\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\HP SimplePass\;C:\Program Files (x86)\HP SimplePass\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\HP SimplePass\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Roxio Shared\DLLShared\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Roxio Shared\DLLShared\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Roxio Shared\12.0\DLLShared\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x86;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x64;C:\texlive\2012\bin\win32;C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape;C:\Program Files (x86)\Pandoc\bin;C:\Program Files\7-Zip;C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x86;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x64;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Lua\5.1;C:\Program Files (x86)\Lua\5.1\clibs;C:\Program Files\Calibre2\;C:\Program Files (x86)\infogridpacific\AZARDI\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\TypeScript\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\;C:\Program Files (x86)\infogridpacific\AZARDI\bin;C:\nodejs\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin

It is probably better to Copy and Paste this value to a text editor, carefully edit and Paste back.