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Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:52:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
To: Luke Kendall <luke DOT kendall AT cisra DOT canon DOT com DOT au>
cc: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: PATH and SystemRoot oddity
In-Reply-To: <20041126064717.0A1A4837CA@pessard.research.canon.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.61.0411261546140.14489@slinky.cs.nyu.edu>
References: <20041126064717 DOT 0A1A4837CA AT pessard DOT research DOT canon DOT com DOT au>
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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.  Also, Cygwin doesn't understand the
%...% notation.  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.  You need to change it back,
so that strings like %SystemRoot% will be automatically expanded by
Windows before Cygwin ever sees them.
HTH,
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_		pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor AT watson DOT ibm DOT com
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

"The Sun will pass between the Earth and the Moon tonight for a total
Lunar eclipse..." -- WCBS Radio Newsbrief, Oct 27 2004, 12:01 pm EDT

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