I would like to be able to cd into a folder that is added to a system as a system variable in Windows 11. Here is a visual representation of the problem:

As you can see, windows command prompt is able to "resolve" variables from the "User variables" section of the Environment variables configuration in Windows, however variables from the "System variables" aren't.

I need to cd into %VS140COMNTOOLS% folder but as you can see it won't be resolved by the command prompt. Is this by design?

VS140COMNTOOLS also doesn't appear in set output.

How can I navigate into %VS140COMNTOOLS%?

CodePudding user response：

System variables and user vars end up in a single environment block. When expanding env vars, there's no concept of user/system. User vars override system vars.

Also: each process gets its own copy of env vars which is resolved when the process launches. Therefore, if a process appears to be "missing" an env var, one of the following happened:

1. The variable was set after the process launched. For example maybe this command prompt was open during the installation of something that created an env var. You'll need to re-launch the command prompt to get the var.
2. OR, the process modified it / removed it.