Environment Variables in Windows 10

AndreyT · 06 Jul 2016

axe0 said:

I also cannot get access to 'Change my environment variables' in User Account.

This specific issue is global. It is not specific to your machine. Nobody can access 'Change my environment variables' link in User Accounts.

This is a known bug in Windows 10. It was introduced in November (1511) update when Microsoft switched to the new environment variable editor. Microsoft is well aware of this issue. Hopefully, it will be fixed in the upcoming major update.

This bug (along with regedit crash and some others) is one of those indicator issues: as long as it is there, Windows 10 is not considered sufficiently mature for release to general public.

axe0 · 07 Jul 2016

Thanks for letting us know about the issue @AndreyT :)

smirk24 · 30 Nov 2016

Are there any useful environment variables that help with performance,the way the computer operates or helps with gaming? If there is any then i am more then interested in knowing them all if its not to much trouble. Thanks in advance:)

Brink · 30 Nov 2016

Hello smirk24, :)

Environment variables really don't affect performance. They basically help for using for target paths.

smirk24 · 30 Nov 2016

Oh okay thank you brink

Brink · 01 Dec 2016

You're most welcome. :)

Pyprohly · 16 Mar 2017

Some environment variables listed, namely, ’cd’, ‘cmdcmdline’, ‘cmdextversion’, ‘date’, ‘errorlevel’, ‘prompt’, ‘random’, and ‘time’, aren’t environment variables. They’re special terms only available on the command prompt.

Brink · 16 Mar 2017

Thank you. Noted in list. :)

mel897 · 03 May 2017

Perhaps there have been some changes in WIndows 10, but currently %HOMEPATH% returns "\users\username". Note: The home drive is not returned. This is important if the user home directory is not on the default location on drive C:

D:\Users\meljm>echo %homepath%
\Users\meljm

D:\Users\meljm>echo %userprofile%
D:\Users\meljm

Brink · 03 May 2017

Hello @mel897, and welcome to Ten Forums. :)

It does indeed only return that with "echo". I'll update the tutorial for this. Thank you.

Using "cd %homepath%" in the command prompt will open to the full path.

Using "%homepath%" in Run or the address bar of File Explorer will also open to the full path.

Environment Variables in Windows 10

Some inaccuracies...