How do you set registry entry as environment variable?

Answer 1

Assuming you are asking how to do this by hand and not from a program, see below. If you want to write a program you'll need to look on MSDN for the various ways of setting and retrieving environment variables.

Set your environment variables into the registry using REG.EXE from the command line.

Variables for the Current User are stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU) and for All Users in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM). The registry locations are:

• HKCU\Environment
• HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

You'll need to know the type of data you want to store. Choices are:

• REG_SZ
• REG_MULTI_SZ
• REG_DWORD_BIG_ENDIAN
• REG_DWORD
• REG_BINARY
• REG_DWORD_LITTLE_ENDIAN
• REG_NONE
• REG_EXPAND_SZ

So to create an environment variable named "Fred" with a value of "1234" do this:

REG ADD HKCU\Environment /v Fred /d 1234 /t REG_SZ

/v is the variable, /d is the data and /t is the type. Use REG_EXPAND_SZ if you want to include existing environment variables (e.g. %system%) and remember to double the %'s (i.e. \d %%system%%\mypath.

Retrieve your setting with:

REG QUERY HKCU\Environment /v FRED

NOTE: This will not update the current environment, neither in the current command window nor in other windows (of any type). ou must logout and login for the changes to be picked up r you'll need to compile the following code-lette which I got from the MSDN reference:

#include

int main(int argc, char* argv[])

{

DWORD_PTR dwReturnValue;

SendMessageTimeout(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, 0,

(LPARAM) "Environment", SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG,

5000, &dwReturnValue);

return 0;

}

Type REG at a command prompt for more details.