[SOLVED] Changing a value in the PATH environment variable

Changing a value in the PATH environment variable

My company uses a program that breaks when Java is updated. This is due to the program install (I assume) placing a static path to Java in the PATH environment variable.

For example, the current PATH variable in question is
C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_171\bin\client,

but if Java is updated and the program is re-installed, the PATH variable will update to include C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_181\bin\client.

I was able to find exactly what I needed (I think) on Microsoft Dev Blogs, but that code is for Powershell 2.0 and doesn't work on Windows 10.

Is this still possible in Windows 10?

Solution

You can use the System.Environment class to modify your environment variables machine-wide:

# get the PATH and split it up
$PATH = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('PATH', 'Machine') -split ';'

# filter out the JRE paths
$PATH = $PATH -notmatch 'java\\jre'
# get any real JRE paths
$PATH += (Get-Item -Path "${Env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\Java\jre*\bin\client").FullName
$PATH = $PATH -join ';'

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('PATH', $PATH, 'Machine')

Note: You will need to run your shell elevated to execute these commands.