How to add path to path variable

How to Add to Windows PATH Environment Variable

Works for Windows 10 or 7

If you’re a coder or programmer, you probably spend a decent amount of time using the command prompt to execute programs or compile code. In order to complete those tasks, you most likely have to use a command from a library or software package installed (like Python) on your system.

By default, most of these programs will add their own custom shortcuts to the Windows environment variables. The most used environment variable in Windows is probably the PATH variable. It basically allows you to run any executables that are located inside the paths specified in the variable at the command prompt without having to give the full path to the executable.

In this article, I’ll show you how you can add more paths to the Windows PATH variable in case you want to run executables from your own custom directories. It’s worth noting that the procedure below is for Windows 10, but it’s almost exactly the same for Windows 7 also.

Add Directories to PATH Variable

To get started, right-click on the Computer or This PC icon on the desktop and select Properties. If you don’t have that icon on your desktop already, you can add any missing desktop icons easily.

On the System dialog page, you’ll see an Advanced system settings link on the left-hand side.

This will bring up the System Properties dialog, which should already be open to the Advanced tab. Go ahead and click on the Environment Variables button at the very bottom.

On the Environment Variables dialog, you’ll see two sets of variables: one for user variables and the other for system variables. Both lists have the PATH variable, so you have to decide which one to edit.

If you only need the commands for your own user account, then edit the user variable. If you need it to work across the computer system regardless of which user is logged in, then edit the system variable. Click on Path and then click on Edit.

On the Edit environment variable dialog, you’ll see a list of all the paths that are currently in the PATH variable. As you can see, Node.js and Git already added their paths so that I can run Git commands and Node.js commands from anywhere while in the command prompt.

To add a new path, simply click on New and it’ll add a new line to the bottom of the list. If you know the path, simply type it in or copy and paste it. If you prefer, you can also click Browse and then navigate to the desired path.

To edit any path, simply select it and then click on the Edit button. You can also delete paths using the Delete button. Note that you can also move items up and down on the list. When you type a command at the command prompt, Windows has to search through each directory stored in the PATH variable to see if that executable exists or not. If you want your executable to be found faster, just move that path up to the top of the list.

This can also come in handy if you have multiple versions of the same command in different paths and need to have one run instead of the other. The one that shows up higher in the list will be run when you type in the command.

Lastly, if you click on Edit text, it will load a dialog where you can edit the Path variable using the old interface where all the paths are listed in one text box.

That’s all there is to it! If you want to learn more about environment variables, make sure to check out my post on how to create your own custom environment variables. Enjoy!

Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications. Read Aseem’s Full Bio

How to: Add Tool Locations to the PATH Environment Variable

Applies to: SharePoint Foundation 2010

This topic explains how to add certain paths that are critical to SharePoint Foundation development to the PATH environment variable of your development computer.

Recommended Paths

We recommend that you add the following paths to the PATH variable:

Tools at the path

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\BIN\

Several tools for SharePoint Foundation development, including psconfig.exe, spmetal.exe, and stsadm.exe.

C:\Program Files (x86) \Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\x64\

Many general development tools, including gacutil.exe, ildasm.exe, sn.exe, sqlmetal.exe, and windiff.exe.

To add a path to the PATH environment variable

On the Start menu, right-click Computer.

On the context menu, click Properties.

In the System dialog box, click Advanced system settings.

On the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box, click Environment Variables.

In the System Variables box of the Environment Variables dialog box, scroll to Path and select it.

Click the lower of the two Edit buttons in the dialog box.

In the Edit System Variable dialog box, scroll to the end of the string in the Variable value box and add a semicolon (;).

Add the new path after the semicolon.

Click OK in three successive dialog boxes, and then close the System dialog box.

If Visual Studio is open when you make changes to system environment variables, it will not recognize the changes until you close and reopen it.

Set path from command line

Users can run an executable from windows command prompt either by giving the absolute path of the file or just by the executable file name. In the latter case, Windows searches for the executable in a list of folders which is configured in environment variables. These environment variables are as below.

1. System path
2. User path

The values of these variables can be checked in system properties( Run sysdm.cpl from Run or computer properties). Initially user specific path environment variable will be empty. Users can add paths of the directories having executables to this variable. Administrators can modify the system path environment variable also.

How to set path from command line?

In Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 we can set path from command line using ‘setx’ command.

For example, to add c:\dir1\dir2 to the path variable, we can run the below command.

Alternative way is to use Windows resource kit tools ‘pathman.exe‘. Using this command we can even remove a directory from path variable. See download windows resource kit tools. This works for Windows 7 also.

Add directory to system path environment variable:

Open administrator command prompt
Run the below command

Remove path from system path environment variable:
Run the below command from elevated command prompt

Setting user path environment variable

For user environment varlables, admin privileges are not required. We can run the below command to add a directory to user path environment variable.

To remove a directory from user path, you can run the below command.

Default option is not allowed more than ‘2’ time(s)

You get this error if you have not enclosed ‘path’ in double quotes. See the below example for setting the path of firefox.

Now if you move %path% to be in the double quotes

Could a context entry be created for folders, perhaps an extended one… to add to path?

what about a multi-verb option, like copy as path?

Johny Why
Answer: Try add the parameter /M

Hi, is there a way I can add an extra variable instead on deleting the currently one and put a new Variable on the Path.

Nuno, pathman described above does exactly that. You can download the resource tools kit and get it.

setx path “%path%;C:\yourFolder”

To set path for java & javac, can I add the paths to PATH or do I need to create the environment variable JAVA_HOME. I don’t have this defined, but windows does not seem to be able to find java binaries on my system.

You can directly add the folder to PATH. No need to define JAVA_HOME. However, adding JAVA_HOME separately avoids cluttering and helps to easily understand what is added.

hello, can someone plz explain this result? After setting path, it did not change. This was run from an Administrator command-line:

C:\Windows\system32>setx path “C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin;D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft VS Code\bin”

SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.

C:\Windows\system32>path
PATH=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin;D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft VS Code\bin;D:\Program Files (x86)\metapad36;D:\Program Files (x86)\metapad36″ /M

Why won’t this work?

SET EPO = D:\Program Files (x86)\McAfee\ePolicy Orchestrator
PATH = %PATH%;%EPO%\jre\bin;%EPO%\apache2\bin

In windows 10 set path %path%; not working. it’s work like :
setx “%path%;C:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\MinGW\bin”

By unfortunately I deleted my system default path. How could I able to find my system path?

Unfortunately I deleted several files with unremembered path names. This article was useful

The following used to work for me when I am in MSDOS environment. Lately I get error messages such as INCLUDE not found. Why is this so?

Used to work
SET PLL =c:\CL5\PLL
SET PLT =c:\CL5\PLL
SET INCLUDE =c:\CL5\INCLUDE
SET PRG =c:\IMS\PRG
SET LIB =c:\CL5\LIB
SET OBJ =c:\CL5\OBJ
PATH =c:\IMS\EXE;\CL5\BIN;\CL5\NG;\CL5\PLL

pathman is one of many tools of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools

Note: The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are not supported on 64-bit platforms.

Huh.
When I did that on Windows 10 v1903, using setx, it replaced the USER scope paths with the SYSTEM scope paths.
Now I’m not sure what was in the old user path.
So, uh… Be careful out there.
And if anyone has a solution how to avoid that, please let me know
Thanks

how to del all my path and set new path.my sql iam not getting connected to XAMPP.

Thank you. Just what I needed.

pathman is one of many tools of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools

Note: The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are not supported on 64-bit platforms….

What is the PATH environment variable and how do I add to it?

I just installed picc-9.82.9453-linux.run from Microchip website, and at the end it asked me

What does it mean?

I also need to add this to the environment path:

/.profile for changes to take immediate effect

4 Answers 4

PATH is an enviroment variable. It basically tells your machine where to search for programs, so when you run your picc program you can just do this:

Method 1

find the following line:

and change it to:

Method 2

Run the command below in the terminal:

/.profile file there?

Shell environment variables are used for several purposes, from storing data, storing software configurations, set terminal settings, and changing shell environment. The environment variables are normally set at boot time, or by different software as required. One way of setting environmental variables is from the command line.

List all variables on terminal

this will print all the variable that you have

Show one variable at a time

The amount of these variables can become a very long list and locating one specific variable can become a tough task. Fortunately Linux allows us to display the value of one shell variable by using the echo command along with the name of the variable. This makes the task very easy. example: echo «$HOME»

Add or change a variable

To add or modify an environment variable, we can use the export command followed by the name of the variable and the values that go with it.

Note, however, that this will only work for the current shell session. It won’t be available in any other terminals.

What are PATH and other environment variables, and how can I set or use them?

are very common here, and in most cases the answers are very similar to each other. In the future it would be nice to have a good Q/A for this.

A good answer would include a simple explanation of what environment variables and especially PATH mean to the OS, as well as simple guidelines on how to set and read them accordingly.

5 Answers 5

What are Environment Variables?

Environment variables hold values related to the current environment, like the Operating System or user sessions.

One of the most well-known is called PATH on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It specifies the directories in which executable programs* are located on the machine that can be started without knowing and typing the whole path to the file on the command line. (Or in Windows, the Run dialog in the Start Menu or + R ).

Other

Other variables might tell programs what kind of terminal is used ( TERM on Linux/Mac OS X), or, on Windows, where the Windows folder is located (e.g., %WINDIR% is C:\Windows ).

Creating new environment variables

In Windows, Linux and Unix, it’s possible to create new environment variables, whose values are then made available to all programs upon launch.

You can use this when writing scripts or programs that are installed or deployed to multiple machines and need to reference values that are specific to these machines. While a similar effect can be achieved using program-specific configuration settings, it’s easier to do this using an environment variable if multiple programs need to access the same value.

Windows

in the Run dialog.

There are many other ways of reaching the same place, such as by typing «environment variables» in the Start Menu/Screen search box and so on.

Environment variables in Windows are separated into user and machine/system specific values. You can view and edit their values there. Their current values upon launch are made available to all programs.

There is also Rapid Environment Editor, which helps setting and changing environment variables in Windows without the need to go deep into the system settings. Another open source program for Windows with which the path environment can be edited very conveniently is Path Editor.

Command Line

Format

Environment Variables in Windows are denoted with percent signs (%) surrounding the name:

To create/set a variable, use set varname=value :

To append/add a variable, use set varname=value;%varname% :

Environment variables set in this way are available for (the rest of) the duration of the Command Prompt process in which they are set, and are available to processes that are started after the variables were set.

To create/set a variable permanently, use setx varname «value» :

You must manually add setx to versions of Windows earlier than Vista.
Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools

List of Windows Environment Variables

Unix derivatives (FreeBSD, GNU / Linux, OS X)

Setting variables

The export command is a standard way to define variables. The syntax is very intuitive. The outcome is identical for these two lines, but the first alternative is preferable in case portability to pre-POSIX Bourne shell is necessary.

See the Linux documentation project, Path HOWTO for a more thorough discussion on this topic.