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Date:	Wed, 1 Dec 2004 11:33:17 +1100 (EST)
From:	Luke Kendall <luke DOT kendall AT cisra DOT canon DOT com DOT au>
Subject:	Re: PATH and SystemRoot oddity
To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
In-Reply-To:	<Pine.GSO.4.61.0411261546140.14489@slinky.cs.nyu.edu>
MIME-Version:	1.0
Message-Id:	<20041201003317.6835784C99@pessard.research.canon.com.au>

On 26 Nov, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>  On Fri, 26 Nov 2004, Luke Kendall wrote:
>  
> > I see that by default PATH includes some entries like
> > %SystemRoot%/System32
>  >
> > I also note that $SystemRoot is undefined, yet $SYSTEMROOT contains the
> > expected C:\WINDOWS value.
>  >
> > This of course causes problems.  Would a backslash-style path work
> > correctly if it were properly interpolated into the PATH?  Is the %
> > notation special magic for Cygwin to handle DOS-isms?
>  >
> > The case variance may be of interest, in that case.
>  
>  The case variance is a red herring.

Could you explain some more?  I was thinking that if SystemRoot but 
SYSTEMROOT was, it might be relevant.

>  Also, Cygwin doesn't understand the
>  %...% notation.

Sure, of course.

>  OTOH, you're not supposed to be seeing these entries in
>  the actual value of your PATH, either in Windows or in Cygwin.  Such
>  entries are usually caused by the wrong type assigned to the PATH value in
>  the registry (REG_SZ instead of REG_EXPAND_SZ).  Some buggy installers
>  change the type of the PATH registry entry.

Ah!  So at some point in the machine's history, some buggy installer
altered this, and it has knock-on effects like this.

>  You need to change it back,
>  so that strings like %SystemRoot% will be automatically expanded by
>  Windows before Cygwin ever sees them.
>  HTH,
>  	Igor

I couldn't find an entry for PATH that seemed to be the normal
environment variable - only things buried inside other items like CLSID
that seemed to be used for other things.

In the Control Panel I found that the system environment variable for
PATH was defined to use %SystemRoot%, so I suspect that's where it's
coming from.  And you're right, it's set badly for Windows and Cygwin,
and interfering with all shells:

C:\>echo %PATH%
%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem
C:>net use
'net' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Thanks, Igor

luke


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