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I'm trying to write a simple PowerShell script to deploy a Visual Studio ASPNET Core 1 project.

Currently, in a batch file i can say

Path=.\node_modules\.bin;%AppData%\npm;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Web\External;%PATH%;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Web\External\git

That will modify the path variable for the duration of the session... for the life of me I can't figure out how to do this simple thing in powershell.

Can someone help me translate this into powershell?

TIA!

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    Thanks Simon, this is the first hit on google when searching for "powershell add to path temporarily"! Commented Jul 29, 2020 at 16:50

2 Answers 2

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Option 1: Modify the $env:Path Variable

  1. Append to the Path variable in the current window:

    $env:Path += ";C:\New directory 1;C:\New directory 2"

  2. Prefix the Path variable in the current window:

    $env:Path = "C:\New directory 1;C:\New directory 2;" + $env:Path

  3. Replace the Path variable in the current window (use with caution!):

    $env:Path = "C:\New directory 1;C:\New directory 2"

Option 2: Use the editenv Utility

I wrote a Windows command-line tool called editenv that lets you interactively edit the content of an environment variable. It works from a Windows console (notably, it does not work from the PowerShell ISE):

editenv Path

This can be useful when you want to edit and rearrange the directories in your Path in a more interactive fashion, and it affects only the current window.

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4 Comments

If you use += to add to the existing paths, make sure you add a semicolon BEFORE the added path. E.G.$Env:Path += ";C:\New directory 1;C:\New directory 2"
I reordered the information in my answer to avoid confusion.
and sometimes you want the new path information first - in which case you can't use += ex. $Env.Path = "C:\New Directory;" + $Env.Path
Thanks for the suggestions regarding adding and prefixing - updated answer.
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You can just use $env:Path, but if you're anxious that that isn't explicit enough, you can use System.Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable():

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path',$Value,[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Process);

And GetEnvironmentVariable() can explicitly retrieve:

[System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path',[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Process); [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path',[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine); [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path',[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User);
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