What is an environment variable in Windows? An environment variable is a dynamic “object” containing an editable value which may be used by one or more software programs in Windows.
In this note i am showing how to list environment variables and display their values from the Windows command-line prompt and from the PowerShell.
Cool Tip: Add a directory to Windows %PATH% environment variable! Read More →
The environment variables in Windows can be printed using the Windows command-line prompt (CMD) or using the PowerShell.
Windows Command-Line Prompt (CMD)
List all Windows environment variables and their values:
C:\> set
“Echo” the contents of a particular environment variable:
C:\> echo %ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE%
Windows PowerShell
Print all Windows environment variables (names and values):
PS C:\> gci env:* | sort-object name
Show the contents of a particular environment variable:
PS C:\> echo $env:ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE
Cool Tip: Set environment variables in Windows! Read More →
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In computer programming, variables are the storage locations for values, and the values themselves can be anything. It could be a number, a filename, or some other piece of data. In a similar fashion, there are things called Environment Variables in your Operating System.
Environment Variables are global variables that store values linked to the current working environment and can be utilized by the operating system and other applications to retrieve necessary operating system information. Environment Variables are also known as env variables. Environment Variables are available in Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Table of Contents
- List of Environment variables in Windows Environment
- List environment variables using Command Line
- List environment variables using Powershell
- Using reg query command in Command Prompt
- List of Environment variables in Linux Environment
- List of Environment variables in macOS Environment
- Conclusion:
They are created as pairs consisting of a number and a value, and both the operating system and the application are able to access those values. The General Format of environment value looks like this:
Variable1 = C:\xyz
Variable2 = 6
variable2 ='val1:val2'
variable4 = val1;val2
...
These types of environment variables can be viewed, created, edited, and deleted. Environment Variable in general helps applications to know which directory to install installable files, and where to find user and system settings.
Some of the environment variables are PATH, USER, HOME, UID, SHELL, TERM, EDITOR, etc.PATHTEXT, OS, TEMP,SYstemRoot.PATH is a popular Environment variable that is available in Windows, Mac, and Linux.
If you want to know what environment variables are used in various OS then I will guide you on this.
List of Environment variables in Windows Environment
There are actually two types of environment variables in Windows. They are :
1. Local/User Environment Variable: User Variables store information that is unique to the logged-in user and are only relevant during the current session. They have located under the «HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Environment» path in the Registry
2. System Environment Variable: Because they are set uniformly across all of your computer’s users, system variables don’t contain any user-specific data. All user accounts are affected by these global variables.They are located under «HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/ControlSession /ManagerEnvironment» path in Registry
There is various way to list environment variables in windows. Let’s discuss some of them.
List environment variables using Command Line
In the command prompt type :
SET
and press Enter.
Some of the most common environment variables:
| Environment Variables | Description |
| %APPDATA% | AppData contains data and settings of various installed programs on your PC. |
| %COMPUTERNAME% | The unique identifier is given to your computer |
| %HOMEPATH% | HomePath describes the path for the user’s personal files. It contains user files like downloads, Desktop, Documents, Videos, Picture, Contacts, and many more. |
| %PATH% | The PATH variable provides the directories on the machine where executable programs can be found. |
| %CD% | Returns the current directory string. |
| %DATE% | The most recent date, formatted according to the Date command. |
| %LOGONSEVER% | This function brings back the name of the domain controller that was responsible for validating the current logon session. |
| %NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS% | This number indicates how many processors are currently installed on the computer. |
| %OS% | This function returns the name of the operating system. |
| %PROMPT% | The directory in which the operating system is stored is returned by this function. |
| %WINDIR% | The directory in which the operating system is stored is returned by this function. |
| %USERNAME% | This function gets you the name of the user who is logged in at the moment. |
| %RANDOM% | It returns a random decimal number between 0 and 32767. |
If you have a large number of system and user variables in environment variables then SET displays all at a time. But if you want one page and then one line at a time then try this:
SET | more
If you want to save this variable for a future look then you can save it in a text file with the following command.
SET > any_name.txt
Here, I have used output.txt as the file name, and this file gets saved under C:\User\Dell path and contain output.txt look like this:
If you want help and wants to know more about set cmdlet then type the below command in command prompt for help:
set /?
Note: All commands used here are case insensitive. So, Get-ChildItem Env: is equivalent to get-childitem env:
List environment variables using Powershell
Get-ChildItem (GCI) is a useful cmdlet that is used to get items and, if the item is a container, it will get child items that are available inside the container.
You can simply type below one line to get all environment variables.
Get-ChildItem Env:
or Simply
gci env:
As you can see, some lines of the output are truncated. If you want to get the full output without any truncation, use the cmdlet below.
gci Env: | Format-Table -Wrap -AutoSize
or
Get-ChildItem Env: | Format-Table -Wrap -AutoSize
The gci env: cmdlet retrieves all environment variables, which are then passed through the pipeline(|) to Format-Table and displayed in a table. The AutoSize option adjusts column widths to avoid truncation.-Wrap Displays text that exceeds the column width in the new line without truncation.
Below, we can see that no lines in the output are truncated, as they were previously.
Using reg query command in Command Prompt
If you just want System variables then type below in the command prompt
reg query «HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment»
If you just want User variables then type below in the command prompt.
reg query HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment
List of Environment variables in Linux Environment
You can use the below cmdlet in Linux for getting environment variables. I am testing in ubuntu and it must work in other distributions of Linux.
printenv
In Linux, you can simply use the below command for displaying the list of environment variables.
env
It is not possible to view all bash variables when using the env command since it will only show a list of environment variables that have been exported.
List of Environment variables in macOS Environment
For macOS, we can use printenv for displaying all environment variables.
printenv
Conclusion:
In this approach, we may get a list of all the environment variables in major operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and Mac.
Переменные окружения (среды) в Windows содержат различную информацию о настройках системы и среды пользователя. Различают переменные окружения пользователя, системы и процессов.
Самый простой способ просмотреть содержимое переменных окружения в Windows – открыть свойства системы (sysdm.cpl) -> Дополнительно -> Переменные среды. Как вы видите, в открывшемся есть две секции: в верхней содержатся переменные окружения пользователя, в нижнем – системные.
Кроме того, переменные среды хранятся в реестре системы. Пользовательские переменные хранятся в разделе HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment. Системные – в HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment.
Вывести значения всех переменных окружения можно в командной строке Windows. Команда простая:
Set
Команда выведет список переменных среды и их значения.
В PowerShell для вывод всех переменных окружения можно использовать команду:
ls env:
Если нужно вывести значение только одной переменной, нужно воспользоваться командой echo, причем имя переменной нужно заключить в знаки процентов. Например,
Echo %systemroot%
Чтобы сохранить все переменные среды и их значения в текстовый файл, воспользуйтесь командой:
set > c:\tmp\env_var.txt
Переменные окружения конкретного процесса можно получить с помощью бесплатной утилиты Process Explorer (от Sysinternals). Достаточно открыть свойства процесса и перейти на вкладку Environment.
on October 16, 2011
Command to list variables
Set command shows the list of all environment variables with assigned values.
You can also restrict the command to display only the variables starting with a common prefix. For example, to list all variables starting with ‘s’ you can run the below command.
set s
Example:
C:\>set s SESSIONNAME=Console SystemDrive=C: SystemRoot=C:\WINDOWS
Environment variables can be used in batch files to find the corresponding value. For example, to get the user login id, we can use %username% variable.
Important environment variables
%Username% : Used to find the id of the user logged in %computername%: Name of the computer. It gives NetBios name not the FQDN name. %path% : List of directories windows need to look for finding an executable %systemdrive% : Installation drive for the currently running OS. %userdomain% : Domain where the current logged in user account is created %PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE% : Architecture model of the processor (AMD64/X86) %windir% : Directory for the Windows OS files. If the OS is installed on C: drive, this variable would point to C:\Windows %TMP%, %TEMP% : Points to folder that applications can use to create temporary files.
Complete list of environment variables
ALLUSERSPROFILE APPDATA CommonProgramFiles CommonProgramFiles(x86) CommonProgramW6432 COMPUTERNAME ComSpec DEFLOGDIR FP_NO_HOST_CHECK HOMEDRIVE HOMEPATH LOCALAPPDATA LOGONSERVER NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS OS Path PATHEXT PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER PROCESSOR_LEVEL PROCESSOR_REVISION ProgramData ProgramFiles ProgramFiles(x86) ProgramW6432 PROMPT PSModulePath PUBLIC SESSIONNAME SystemDrive SystemRoot TEMP USERDNSDOMAIN USERDOMAIN USERNAME userpath USERPROFILE VSEDEFLOGDIR windir
The list may vary slightly on your computer depending on the OS edition and the list of applications you installed on your computer.
In addition to the above, there are few more environment variables which are not displayed by ‘set’ command. But these can be used in windows command line or in batch files. They are listed below.
%CD% : can be used to get the current directory %DATE% : can be used to get the date %TIME% : can be used to get the time %RANDOM% : can be used to get random number between 0 and 32767 %ERRORLEVEL% : can be used to get the error level value %CMDEXTVERSION% : gets current Command Processor Extensions %CMDCMDLINE% : gets the command line executable that invoked the command prompt. %HIGHESTNUMANODENUMBER% : Gets the highest numa node number on this computer
How to modify environment variables values?
We can use ‘Set’ command to change environment variables from command line.
You can view environment variables in the Command Prompt by using the `set` command, which lists all environment variables in the current session. Here’s how to do it:
set
What Are Environment Variables?
Environment variables are dynamic values that the operating system uses to determine how to behave in different circumstances. They serve as a list of key-value pairs that can be used by various applications and scripts running on your computer.
There are two main types of environment variables:
-
User Variables: These are specific to the user account currently logged into the system. They can be tailored to individual user preferences and settings.
-
System Variables: These are global variables accessible to all users on the machine. They define system-wide configurations, such as the path where executable files are located.
Understanding environment variables is crucial for effectively managing software applications and system configurations, as they dictate various settings for the way programs operate.
Check Environment Variables in Cmd: A Quick Tutorial
Why You Might Want to View Environment Variables
Knowing how to view environment variables can be beneficial for several reasons:
-
Modifying System Paths: You might want to add or modify paths for executable files, allowing for quicker access to commands and scripts.
-
Configuring Software Applications: Some applications rely on environment variables for configurations, such as setting database connection strings or API keys.
By viewing environment variables, you can troubleshoot issues, optimize your workflows, and better understand how your system operates.
cmd Echo Environment Variable: Quick Start Guide
How to Check Environment Variables in Windows CMD
Using the `set` Command
The `set` command is one of the simplest ways to view environment variables within the Windows Command Prompt. When executed without any parameters, the command displays a complete list of all environment variables in your current session.
Syntax:
set
When you run this command, you’ll receive an output that looks something like this:
PATH=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-11.0.11\bin;C:\Windows\system32;...
USERPROFILE=C:\Users\YourUsername
Each line shows a single environment variable and its current value.
Displaying a Specific Environment Variable
If you’re interested in viewing the value of a specific environment variable, you can use the `echo` command. This is particularly useful for checking the value of common variables like `PATH`.
Syntax:
echo %VARIABLE_NAME%
For example, to check the `PATH` variable, you would execute:
echo %PATH%
The output will display the directories listed in your `PATH`, enabling you to confirm whether the necessary directories are included for executable files.
How to Open Environment Variables from Cmd Easily
Show Environment Variables CMD: A Detailed Breakdown
Listing All Environment Variables
If you’d like to scroll through the environment variables one page at a time, you can use the `more` command in conjunction with `set`. This technique helps you avoid overwhelming amounts of output in your Command Prompt window.
Code Snippet:
set | more
This command lists all environment variables but pauses for you to read each page, allowing for easier navigation through the output.
Viewing System vs. User Variables
Understanding the difference between user and system variables is essential when managing your environment. To see this distinction, you can use the `systeminfo` command.
Code Snippet:
systeminfo | findstr /i "environment"
The output from this command will include a summary of environmental variables and will help you differentiate between those set for the user and those available to the system. This is valuable when troubleshooting variable-related issues.
Mastering Variables in Cmd: A Quick Reference Guide
Show Environment Variables Windows CMD: GUI vs. Command Line
Accessing Environment Variables via GUI
Windows provides a graphical interface to access environment variables via the System Properties. You can navigate to Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables. This view provides an organized way to edit or view variables.
While this method is user-friendly, it lacks the speed and efficiency of using the command line, especially for those who are experienced with CMD commands.
Advantages of Using CMD to Show Environment Variables
Using CMD offers distinct advantages:
-
Speed and Efficiency: Commands can quickly display or modify environment variables without navigating through multiple GUI windows.
-
Automation Capabilities: Commands can be scripted for batch processing, making repetitive tasks simpler and faster.
Delete Files Cmd: A Quick Guide to File Removal
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Environment Variables Not Showing
If you find that expected environment variables are not showing in your CMD session, there could be several reasons. First, ensure that you are running the Command Prompt with sufficient permissions. Running as an administrator may be necessary for system-level variables.
Additionally, if you see unexpected output, it may be due to incorrect syntax or mistyping the variable name. Always check the correct casing and spelling of the variables.
Modifying Environment Variables through CMD
For those interested in making permanent changes to environment variables, the `setx` command can be employed. This command enables you to create or modify variables for future sessions.
Syntax:
setx VARIABLE_NAME "value"
For example, if you want to set a new user variable related to HTML files, you could run:
setx HTML_PATH "C:\html_files"
Keep in mind that changes made using `setx` will only apply to new Command Prompt sessions.
Mastering Cmd Set Variable: Quick Guide for Beginners
Understanding Environment Variables in Batch Scripting
Using Environment Variables in Scripts
Environment variables can significantly enhance the functionality of batch scripts. By incorporating them, you can customize script behavior based on user settings or system configurations.
For instance, you can use environment variables to specify a user directory dynamically:
@echo off
echo User directory is: %USERPROFILE%
This line will output the current user’s profile directory when the script is executed, allowing scripts to adapt to different users without hardcoding values.
Exploring Cmd System Variables: A Quick Guide
Conclusion
Understanding how to view environment variables cmd is a fundamental skill for anyone looking to leverage the full capabilities of Windows. Whether you’re troubleshooting issues, fine-tuning your system’s performance, or scripting automation tasks, being able to confidently access and manage these variables is invaluable. With the commands and techniques discussed here, you are well on your way to mastering Windows Command Prompt and enhancing your workflow.