I’m running Windows XP, and sometimes I want to use the command prompt. Every time I open up the command prompt, it already has a default path list. (For those of you confused by what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the list of paths that let you run things in that directory wherever you are; for instance, if I type “path c:\asdf”, and c:\asdf contains program “iamcool.exe”, then now I can run iamcool.exe from any directory by just typing “iamcool.exe”.) The default list includes basic directories like the Windows directory.
Anyway, my question is, how do I modify the path list that is loaded everytime I open the command prompt? It used to be that I could just modify the autoexec.bat, but that was back in the good ol’ days of DOS.
Hi,
I’m working with win2000 for the moment, but it should be similar to XP. Go to My Computer -> right click -> properties. Go to environment variables. The path should be there.
Oops forgot this. The environment variables button should be in the advanced tab.
Ah, yes, there it is. I remember seeing this before, and was looking all over for it, but I just couldn’t remember how to get there! Thanks!
One caveat.
Depending on the types of programs you are working with, the order of items in your path may be important. If, for example, you work with Java, you may find that your path actually contains four copies of javac.exe (each possibly a different version). Which one you get depends on the search order set by the order of elements in your path.
You should also leave the system directories in the path if you ever use command line functions like ping, ftp, ipconfig, etc.