Actually, you don't have to log out and back in again. You can make the changes in the Registry however you like. Then go to the Control Panel -> System (-> Advanced) -> Environment. Click OK. Now the Explorer shell has been told to pick up the new environment settings (but the Service Control Manager hasn't, but that shouldn't matter for most cases). Now open a new Command Prompt window and the environment should reflect the changes. Command Prompt windows opened before the changes won't see the changes.

Update: Regarding

clicking OK and/or Apply in the System CP has no effect on any current (no surprise there) or new command prompt windows
It sounds like you may not have followed the directions. You have to select the "Environment" tab (in WinNT) and then click "OK" ("Apply" won't be an option). In Win2K, you have to select the "Advanced" tab, open the "Environment" dialog, then click "OK".

One more thing, you can't start a new command prompt from an old command prompt or it will inherit its environment from that command prompt instead of from the Explorer shell.

I've just reverified this behavior for both WinNT and Win2K (starting the new command prompt window from the "Start" menu).

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

In reply to (tye)Re2: Evironment variable on Win32 machines by tye
in thread Evironment variable on Win32 machines by RayRay459

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.