Inserting at the head of the PATH

[Rich Pasco]

A user wants to put his own utilities directory (C:\bin)
at the head of his PATH (i.e. before C:\WINDOWS\system32
etc.). This is so that when he is logged in, some
command-line utilities in his directory are found before
their namesakes in the Windows directory.

How can he do this? I am not open to arguments whether
this is a wise thing to do.

Please refer to Control Panel / Performance and
Maintenance / System / Advanced / Environment Variables.

It seems that, the directories defined in the "user"
variable PATH get appended *after* those in the "system"
variable PATH. The user to redefine the system
variable. Is there anything he can do with the user PATH
to get his entries to precede (or completely replace) the
system PATH?

- Rich

 

[Torgeir Bakken (MVP)]

(snip)
Please refer to Control Panel / Performance and
Maintenance / System / Advanced / Environment Variables.

It seems that, the directories defined in the "user"
variable PATH get appended *after* those in the "system"
variable PATH. The user to redefine the system
variable. Is there anything he can do with the user PATH
to get his entries to precede (or completely replace) the
system PATH?

Hi

Add it (C:\bin) to the front of the system path...

 

[Rich Pasco]

Add it (C:\bin) to the front of the system path...

Thanks, but this would make it affect all users. I was
hoping to make it affect only the one user. No way?

- Rich

 

[George Ellis]

If you think it would help, you could figure out my mail address from my
response. Send me a note with the user's phone number and I will tell him
that he is being an idiot? ;-).

I don't think you can get the user path ahead of the system path. But,
maybe in a cmd using setlocal you can get closer to it.