How do you avoid over-populating the PATH Environment Variable in Windows?

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I would like to know what are the approaches that you use to manage the executables in your system. For example I have almost everything accessible through the command line, but now I come to the limit of the path string, so i can't add any more dir.

So what do you recommend? A long time ago, I tried to use softLinks of the executables in a Dir that belonged to the path, but that approach didn't work. Throw the "executable only" to a known Dir,has the problems that almost any application require a set of files, so this also is bad. Throw the executable and all his files to a known Dir, mmm this will work, but the possibility to get a conflict in the name of the files is very very high. Create a HardLink? i don't know. What do you think?

Raynard answered 10/12, 2010 at 2:18 Comment(3)

why you use so much paths? path is usually use for common dir, when your app must sharing extend object/app/lib with others. Use so much make app start slower. Can you give more detail about how you using, create path environment var? – Infighting 10/12, 2010 at 2:31

hi pinichi, well a lot of applications use the standard "C:\Program File\AppNAme\...", and in my case a lot of this applications can run in a command line fashion or need to be accessible to other apps (for example the executables of Miktex that any Tex editor expect that exist), so they need to be in the PATH. I wan't to know a better approach because mine is unsustainable – Raynard 10/12, 2010 at 2:43

This tool will compress the paths. The result is impressive: uweraabe.de/Blog/2014/09/09/the-garbled-path-variable/#more-337 – Megalopolis 19/5, 2015 at 14:6

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One way I can think of is to use other environment variables to store partial paths; for example, if you have

C:\this_is_a\long_path\that_appears\in_multiple_places\subdir1;
C:\this_is_a\long_path\that_appears\in_multiple_places\subdir2;

then you can create a new environment variable such as

SET P1=C:\this_is_a\long_path\that_appears\in_multiple_places

after which your original paths become

%P1%\subdir1;
%P1%\subdir2;

EDIT: Another option is to create a bin directory that holds .bat files that point to the appropriate .exe files.

EDIT 2: Ben Voigt's comment to another answer mentions that using other environment variables as suggested might not reduce the length of %PATH% because they would be expanded prior to being stored. This may be true and I have not tested for it. Another option though is to use 8dot3 forms for longer directory names, for example C:\Program Files is typically equivalent to C:\PROGRA~1. You can use dir /x to see the shorter names.

EDIT 3: This simple test leads me to believe Ben Voigt is right.

set test1=hello
set test2=%test1%hello
set test1=bye
echo %test2%

At the end of this, you see output hellohello rather than byehello.

EDIT 4: In case you decide to use batch files to eliminate certain paths from %PATH%, you might be concerned about how to pass on arguments from your batch file to your executable such that the process is transparent (i.e., you won't notice any difference between calling the batch file and calling the executable). I don't have a whole lot of experience writing batch files, but this seems to work fine.

@echo off

rem This batch file points to an executable of the same name
rem that is located in another directory. Specify the directory
rem here:

set actualdir=c:\this_is\an_example_path

rem You do not need to change anything that follows.

set actualfile=%0
set args=%1
:beginloop
if "%1" == "" goto endloop
shift
set args=%args% %1
goto beginloop
:endloop
%actualdir%\%actualfile% %args%

As a general rule, you should be careful about running batch files from the internet, since you can do all sorts of things with batch files such as formatting your hard drive. If you don't trust the code above (which I wrote), you can test it by replacing the line

%actualdir%\%actualfile% %args%

with

echo %actualdir%\%actualfile% %args%

Ideally you should know exactly what every line does before you run it.

Sizable answered 10/12, 2010 at 2:32 Comment(14)

the 8dot3 form works good, but for directories real big isn't too great, for instance "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK\VisualStudioIntegration\Tools\Sandcastle\ProductionTools\". Another thing that save a little was that as a user i could create a PATH variable based in the System Path, and add any other Dir. All of this approaches are of the type "compact that string", but can we have a centralized directory of binaries, as has Unix? – Raynard 10/12, 2010 at 3:8

Hmm, regarding very long directories, I would think the opposite is true: the longer the directory, the more characters you save by using 8dot3 format. If it's hard to navigate in cmd, note that you can use * to save typing. So for example, from root, type in dir /x pro*. You will see your desired directory there along with its 8dot3 name. Then use cd to navigate to it and repeat the process. – Sizable 10/12, 2010 at 3:18

i say that isn't too great in the sense that compressing his length perhaps being a valid solution( that i'm definitely begin to use) don't remove the root problem...having the Path variable overflowed with different directories – Raynard 10/12, 2010 at 3:33

Regarding UNIX, there you have $PATH which works very similarly to %PATH% in Windows, so I'm not sure what your point is exactly. By convention, UNIX directory names tend to be shorter than in Windows, and as a result $PATH also tends to be shorter. – Sizable 10/12, 2010 at 3:33

Thanks Mitch, the Edit 4 that you provide is what I wanted!, now i can have centralized folder with all the binaries that i need. I'm going to testing more in deep to see if there is a problem with some app – Raynard 10/12, 2010 at 5:54

hi Mitch i tested in various cases, and the only complain that i have is that for example when you run it from the execute menu, it open a cmd prompt in behind and then open the app that i want,...is there a possibility to hide this prompt? – Raynard 10/12, 2010 at 13:25

@voodoomsr, I cannot reproduce what you described. What version of Windows are you using? Can you give any more details? I did notice while trying to reproduce your results that Windows Vista (32-bit Home Premium SP1) will give the full path along with .bat and quotes as %0 and thus you would need to modify the script accordingly for this use; simplest way (although you lose generality) is to manually set %actualfile% to whatever the file name is, instead of pulling it from %0. Beyond that you could use string parsing which seems like overkill. But that's a bit of a tangent. – Sizable 10/12, 2010 at 13:45

@voodoomsr, Okay I have reproduced it. This could be of help: winhelponline.com/blog/… – Sizable 10/12, 2010 at 16:47

@voodoomsr, I have tested the VBScript solution in the link from my above comment, and it works. While it is an added layer of complexity I did not anticipate, you can put the VBS files in the same directory as your BAT files, then from Start > Run.. you can type in myprog.vbs whereas from cmd you can type in myprog. This is still relatively clean and hopefully suits your needs. By the way, the reason I could not reproduce the behavior initially was completely my fault; I actually got interrupted in the middle of testing, and then thought I'd completed a test when I hadn't. – Sizable 10/12, 2010 at 17:5

Your 'edit 4' section is overly complicated for passing arguments to the executable. See Michael Burr's answer. – Deutzia 17/12, 2012 at 18:36

Not sure why this is so upvoted. The original answer and EDITs 2 and 3 present a solution that is simply wrong. EDITs 1 and 4 present an overly complicated and brittle version of a solution that is done properly in other answers. The answerer appears to be almost completely ignorant of the issues raised by the question. – Kirstenkirsteni 20/3, 2014 at 14:3

your solution is very good. however, when I using %var% to replace some part of the directory, when I want to backup the Path environment variable to a text file with command like "set Path>C:\path.txt", the Path will be expand to the full direcotory form, and when the total length is long than 2054 characters, it will be truncated, so do you have any suggest on this export variable excluding by manual. – Entertainer 30/5, 2015 at 16:43

wouldn't creating a bin folder with shortcuts be better than batch files? Specifically because they use less space and can handle arguments the same way as the .exe files. – Keil 15/6, 2015 at 9:10

Edit 4 appeared to work fine at first, but then screwed up a bunch of stuff in my path so that I had to re-ad them. DO NOT USE. – Uncovered 7/8, 2015 at 17:40

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This will parse your %PATH% environment variable and convert each directory to its shortname equivalent and then piece it all back together:

@echo off

SET MyPath=%PATH%
echo %MyPath%
echo --

setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

SET TempPath="%MyPath:;=";"%"
SET var=
FOR %%a IN (%TempPath%) DO (
    IF exist %%~sa (
        SET "var=!var!;%%~sa"
    ) ELSE (
        echo %%a does not exist
    )
)

echo --
echo !var:~1!

Take the output and update the PATH variable in environment variables.

Dulce answered 3/12, 2013 at 22:20 Comment(9)

Thank you that was very useful!! It shortened my path from 1990 to 1338 and everything still works like a charm! I chose your approach because I wanted to keep everything in my path and the linking over batch files would have been too time-consuming. THANKS! – Schuster 18/4, 2014 at 23:9

This was also useful because it told me about all of the non-existent directories in my path that had accumulated over time. – Diffusion 19/6, 2014 at 7:19

Rapid Environment Editor is another way to do this. It highlights non-existent directories and has an option "convert long path to short". – Fading 13/8, 2014 at 9:2

@RussellGallop: that, sir, is an awesome tool. – Sapir 16/8, 2014 at 11:36

Note the missing closing quote after %%~sa. I tried to update the answer but it won't let me unless I change 6 characters – Durrett 31/7, 2015 at 17:44

I wish I could upvote more than once. I realize this answer came almost 3 years after the "accepted answer" but if I were the OP I would change my mind and make this the accepted answer! – Functionalism 9/12, 2015 at 16:38

One caveat, make sure no one runs fsutil 8dot3name strip anywhere that would affect an abbreviated path name AFTER you use this. Of course, how many people actually knew about fsutil 8dot3name strip before reading this? :-) – Functionalism 13/1, 2016 at 19:2

In addition to this fix, if you have a lot of c:\Program Files and c:\Program Files (x86) entries you can replace them with the variables %ProgramFiles% and %ProgramFiles(x86)% defined at tenforums.com/tutorials/… These only save a few characters each, but if you're REALLY on the verge of maxing out PATH, it could be the difference. – Boren 19/9, 2016 at 19:20

@Boren The 8.3 names of the folders are shorter – Functionalism 10/10, 2017 at 20:14

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