Why are user environment variables sometimes not expanded?

Question

I set a user environment variable FOO=bar via the control panel.

I then open 2 cmd windows. The first from the start button, the other from the context (shift+right-click) menu of my working directory, and type echo %FOO%.

The first prints bar. The other prints %FOO%

Why are the outputs different & is there a way to access user environment variables from every cmd window?

Answer 1

I'm working on the same problem.

c:\SetX test NOT
c:\echo test=%test% fail.
test= fail.

c:\start %comspec%
Microsoft Wind..er..DOS [Version 6.1.7601]
c:\echo test=%test% fail.
test= fail.

Start -> run -> cmd
echo test=%test% fail.
test=NOT fail.

A win-r macro would work but prefer quiet / non-intrusive solution.

I tried by using schtasks /run but it kept the old env.

There's probably a command to launch with the new env.

Nirsoft or sysinternals probably has something...

Still looking.

*** MSalters answered OP correctly, inheritance issue.

The command-prompt-here inherited the explorer's old environment.

taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
start explorer

Then a new context-menu command-prompt-here should work.

Answer 2

User environment variables are inherited. Each process gets them on creation from its parent. Changing them will affect the current process and its future children.

Answer 3

how are you setting the variable? I believe you may be setting it as a "CMD variable", which scope is only valid for the current session.

For a persistent variable you should use SETX command:

SETX FOO bar

Please visit the following links for detailed information between SET and SETX commands:

• http://ss64.com/nt/set.html
• http://ss64.com/nt/setx.html