Why is Path variable behaving like other user variables in “Edit environment variables for your account”?
I tried to add a path to the Path variable using chatgpt prompts (which I should not have done)
setx Path "%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%PATH%"
Now I can’t see the old path variables nor add new path variables. The system functions fine until now but I don’t know what I should do to revert back the behaviour.
What do you mean acting like other user variables? Your screenshot shows a user variable.
Yes, Path is an user variable. Since it will have multiple path(s) there are options to add, delete, move path(s) but when you only have one path in the path variable, it will behave like other user variables. I learnt this from a mistake I made yesterday.
Hmm, guess I don’t understand.
There’s a system path, and a user-definable path as shown in the screenshot?
We’re you just surprised there’s a user-definable path?
Yeah, I was.
Maybe the variable is still available in a running program - do you have a terminal open? If so, try doing
echo %PATH%.The response was just
%PATH%. The behaviour didn’t change even after restarting my pc.You presumably executed that in PowerShell? In that case you’d have to use
$env:PATH. But by rebooting you’ve removed the chance to access the previous value.Did I fuck it up seriously and there’s no way to reverse it back? The good thing is I can see all the variables and none of them were deleted when I tried
echo $env:PATH. But I can’t keep using cli to change them forever.It really depends on what extra stuff you had added there. In a normal installation, it shouldn’t be much - maybe some command line tools don’t work as expected, but those can be added back.
I’d maybe suggest creating a new user, reading the PATH from that, and setting it on your profile (change any references to the new user to your old one). That should mostly reset things.
I can’t do that since this is a work laptop with restrictions.
You could try following these steps: https://superuser.com/a/571344
I don’t have a ControlSet002 folder on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Update: I checked out ControlSet001 and it had all the previous path. I cannot copy them since I didn’t have enough permissions in my work laptop. But like I said in above comments, doing
echo $:PATHdisplayed the previous path variables which I copied and pasted on the Path variable. I think adding multiple path variable enables the option to add, edit etc. Idk whether I recovered all the previous path variables but it’s just functioning fine.
