I need to access an environment variable remotely. To do this, I think the best way is to read it from registry.
Where are environment variables stored in the Windows Registry?
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4 Answers
Here's where they're stored on Windows XP through Windows Server 2012 R2:
User Variables
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment System Variables
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment 
14 Comments
0x6B6F77616C74
Remember to restart your system in order to put your changes into effect.
Cristian Diaconescu
You don't need to restart. Just kill Explorer.exe and bring it back alive. It's the parent process for e.g. cmd.exe (when started from the Start menu)
Steve Scheffler
Processes read in system env variables at the time they start. So with something like IIS, restarting that service should bring in the updated values.
mythofechelon
User path variables (My Documents, AppData, etc) are stored at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
quintessential5
Windows 7 uses the same registry locations.
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There is a more efficient way of doing this in Windows 7. SETX is installed by default and supports connecting to other systems.
To modify a remote system's global environment variables, you would use
setx /m /s HOSTNAME-GOES-HERE VariableNameGoesHere VariableValueGoesHere This does not require restarting Windows Explorer.
/M Specifies that the variable should be set in the system wide (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) environment. The default is to set the variable under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER environment.
/S system Specifies the remote system to connect to.
1 Comment
WalyKu
Be careful with this, as setx truncates everything after the 1024 charachters!!! superuser.com/questions/387619/…
System environment variables followed by User environment variables:
CMD:
reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" reg query HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment PowerShell:
Get-Item "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" Get-Item HKCU:\Environment Powershell/.NET: (see EnvironmentVariableTarget Enum)
[System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariables([System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine) [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariables([System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User) 
Comments
I always had problems with that, and I made a getx.bat script:
:: getx %envvar% [\m] :: Reads envvar from user environment variable and stores it in the getxvalue variable :: with \m read system environment @SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion @echo OFF @set l_regpath="HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment" @if "\m"=="%2" set l_regpath="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" ::REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" /v PATH /t REG_SZ /f /d "%PATH%" ::@REG QUERY %l_regpath% /v %1 /S @FOR /F "tokens=*" %%A IN ('REG QUERY %l_regpath% /v %1 /S') DO ( @ set l_a=%%A @ if NOT "!l_a!"=="!l_a: =!" set l_line=!l_a! ) :: Delimiter is four spaces. Change it to tab \t @set l_line=!l_line! @set l_line=%l_line: = % @set getxvalue= @FOR /F "tokens=3* delims= " %%A IN ("%l_line%") DO ( @ set getxvalue=%%A ) @set getxvalue=!getxvalue! @echo %getxvalue% > getxfile.tmp.txt @ENDLOCAL :: We already used tab as a delimiter @FOR /F "delims= " %%A IN (getxfile.tmp.txt) DO ( @set getxvalue=%%A ) @del getxfile.tmp.txt @echo ON 