Re: What does %WinDir% mean?
- From: VanguardLH <V@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:57:45 -0500
Laurel wrote:
see below
"VanguardLH" <V@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:hboh1q$8bs$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Laurel wrote:
Interesting. I think the other folks probably gave me what I needed for
my
original question, but I'd like to know more about set|more. I tried it,
but found no environment variable associated with WINDIR. The last
entries
in the alphabetized list were for
SYSTEMROOT,TEMP,TMP,USERDNSDOMAIN,USERDOMAIN,USERNAME,USERPROFILE,
USDEFLOGDIR and then
Protection
BLASTER.
Perhaps there really is no WINDIR variable, and it's just a convention to
use environmental variable syntax?
The convention is to use %var% to return (use) the value saved in an
environment variable by that name. If the environment variable is not
define, NUL is returned.
The windir environment variable is created by Windows. It is not one
that is defined by the user or added by a program's install or
configuration. This env var has been defined going back to Windows 3.0;
see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/65662. If the env var is not
defined, some applications will fail that expect to use it to find the
path to OS files (or where they polluted the OS folder in saving files
used by that program). The windir var may not be listed when you look
at them (right-click on My Computer or open the System applet in Control
Panel, Advanced tab, Environment Variables button). If it isn't
defined, Windows creates it when you login.
Some DOS programs are known to set this variable to NUL (which
effectively deletes them). Do you run old DOS programs?
In a command shell, when you run the following command:
echo ---%windir%...
I typed exactly what you show above, with dashes and dots. I just get
another directory prompt. In other words, as if I had typed nothing
do you see something like "---C:\Windows..." or "---..."? What do you
get for output from running the following command?
set | find "windir"
Same things as for echo. As if I had just pressed the enter key.
That runs 'set' to output a list of environment variables which gets
piped into the find command that will list only the output lines that
have "windir" in them. If windir is defined, it will be outputted by
'set' and 'find' should find it and output the matching line which
should look like:
windir=C:\WINDOWS
Are you still in the command console after the command ends? Did you
even open a command console? Running commands in Start -> Run is *not*
opening a command console.
How did you open the command console? Did you run cmd.exe to load one?
Or use the "Command Prompt" shortcut in your Start menu? I prefaced my
instructions with "In a command shell". So how did you do that part?
The commands mentioned above issue their output to stdout (which is the
window for the command console). If you run those commands outside a
command console, they run and exit but there is no command console left
behind to see their output.
.
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