Why is Path variable behaving like other user variables in “Edit environment variables for your account”?

I tried to add a path to the Path variable using chatgpt prompts (which I should not have done)

setx Path "%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%PATH%"

Now I can’t see the old path variables nor add new path variables. The system functions fine until now but I don’t know what I should do to revert back the behaviour.

  • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    You presumably executed that in PowerShell? In that case you’d have to use $env:PATH. But by rebooting you’ve removed the chance to access the previous value.

    • spidermanOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Did I fuck it up seriously and there’s no way to reverse it back? The good thing is I can see all the variables and none of them were deleted when I tried echo $env:PATH. But I can’t keep using cli to change them forever.

      • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        It really depends on what extra stuff you had added there. In a normal installation, it shouldn’t be much - maybe some command line tools don’t work as expected, but those can be added back.

        I’d maybe suggest creating a new user, reading the PATH from that, and setting it on your profile (change any references to the new user to your old one). That should mostly reset things.

        • spidermanOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I can’t do that since this is a work laptop with restrictions.

            • spidermanOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              I don’t have a ControlSet002 folder on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

              Update: I checked out ControlSet001 and it had all the previous path. I cannot copy them since I didn’t have enough permissions in my work laptop. But like I said in above comments, doing echo $:PATH displayed the previous path variables which I copied and pasted on the Path variable. I think adding multiple path variable enables the option to add, edit etc. Idk whether I recovered all the previous path variables but it’s just functioning fine.