New PATH editor interface not working for user Path.

Question

New PATH editor interface not working for user Path.

Anonymous

If I'm not mistaken, Windows 10 has introduced the new GUI interface for editing PATH environment variable in 1511. (The 'Edit envionment vaiable' dialog)

My current build is 1909-18363.836.

The problem is, the new path editor shows corectly for System's Path vaiable. But NOT for User's Path. The dialog is for the oldschool colon-separated string of... strings. In fact, even the dialog title reads "Edit User Variable" instead of "Edit environment vaiable" as it should. As if Windows does not recognize my Path variable as a legitimate one.

Another computer of mine has 1909-18363.900 installed and the new path editor is showing for both System's and User's.

I noticed this just today. Any possible idea on what could be causing this, or more importantly, how to fix it so that I can use the proper path editor for my user env variables as well?

PS: No recommendation of 3rd party tool, please. I want to fix the issue, not pretend it's not there.

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Answer 1

This is very embarrassing, but I found a solution after some brief experiments.

Apparently, the first entry of the Path variable should NOT contain %appdata% or %localappdata%. It MAY contain %userprofile%.

For example, the first entry before Windows recognizing it as part of Path was:

%appdata%\Python\Python36\Scripts;

Windows started to show the Path editor correctly after I modified it to:

%userprofile%\Python\Python36\Scripts;

Probably has something to do with evaluation order. Or maybe just oversight.

My other machine worked because it had "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps" as the first entry.

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New PATH editor interface not working for user Path.

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