Setting Windows PowerShell environment variables

Question

I have found out that setting the PATH environment variable affects only the old command prompt. PowerShell seems to have different environment settings. How do I change the

Answer 1

Like JeanT's answer, I wanted an abstraction around adding to the path. Unlike JeanT's answer I needed it to run without user interaction. Other behavior I was looking for:

• Updates $env:Path so the change takes effect in the current session
• Persists the environment variable change for future sessions
• Doesn't add a duplicate path when the same path already exists

In case it's useful, here it is:

function Add-EnvPath {
    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
        [string] $Path,

        [ValidateSet('Machine', 'User', 'Session')]
        [string] $Container = 'Session'
    )

    if ($Container -ne 'Session') {
        $containerMapping = @{
            Machine = [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine
            User = [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User
        }
        $containerType = $containerMapping[$Container]

        $persistedPaths = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', $containerType) -split ';'
        if ($persistedPaths -notcontains $Path) {
            $persistedPaths = $persistedPaths + $Path | where { $_ }
            [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path', $persistedPaths -join ';', $containerType)
        }
    }

    $envPaths = $env:Path -split ';'
    if ($envPaths -notcontains $Path) {
        $envPaths = $envPaths + $Path | where { $_ }
        $env:Path = $envPaths -join ';'
    }
}

Check out my gist for the corresponding Remove-EnvPath function.