Can't run apps in %SystemRoot%\system32

[Aaron Sherber]

Hi,

I'm running WinXP Pro SP2. This afternoon I opened up a command prompt
in c:\ and tried to run ftp -- got "'ftp' is not recognized as an
internal or external command, operable program or batch file". Same with
telnet. Both of these worked fine yesterday.

I verified that ftp.exe and telnet.exe are both in c:\windows\system32.
From the command prompt, path does include %SystemRoot%\system32, and
echo %SystemRoot% does give c:\windows. If I change to the system32
directory, I can run ftp and telnet with no problem.

I edited my environment variables and explicitly added c:\windows
\system32 to the path, and then ftp and telnet ran fine from the command
prompt.

What could cause Windows to stop interpreting %SystemRoot%\system32
correctly?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Aaron.

 

[Aaron Sherber]

Answered my own question after some more poking around.

Somehow, HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager
\Environment\Path had turned into a REG_SZ type, not a REG_EXPAND_SZ
type. Changed it back, rebooted, and all was well.

If anyone has any thoughts as to how this might have gotten changed, I'd
be very interested in hearing.

Thanks,
Aaron.

 

[Nightowl]

Answered my own question after some more poking around.

Somehow, HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager
\Environment\Path had turned into a REG_SZ type, not a REG_EXPAND_SZ
type. Changed it back, rebooted, and all was well.

If anyone has any thoughts as to how this might have gotten changed, I'd
be very interested in hearing.

Hi Aaron

The couple of times I have seen this before, it has been caused by a new
app trying to add itself to the Path and ineptly changing the data type
in the process.