Windows shell tips

Windows shell tips (10nov2009)

Modifying environment variables: Instead of using the graphic interface, you can change permanently an environmental variable with setx, part of the 'Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools'
Adding/removing from Path: To add/remove entries from path, it is less messy and safer use pathman, part of 'Windows 2003 Resource Kit'
Windows Script Host: Check documentation about the 'Windows Script Host'. Forget batch files and learn to write shell scripting in javascript.

Windows environmental variables
Variable	Example (2k/XP)	Example (W7)
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%	C:\Documents and Settings\All Users	C:\ProgramData
%APPDATA%	C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data	C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming
%COMPUTERNAME%	{computername}
%COMMONPROGRAMFILES%	C:\Program Files\Common Files
%COMMONPROGRAMFILES(x86)%	C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
%COMSPEC%	C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
%HOMEDRIVE%	C:
%HOMEPATH%	\Documents and Settings\{username}	\Users\{username}
%PATH%	C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;{other paths}
%PATHEXT%	.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.WSF;.WSH	.com;.exe;.bat;.cmd;.vbs;.vbe;.js;.jse;.wsf;.wsh;.msc
%PROGRAMFILES%	C:\Program Files
%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%	C:\Program Files (x86)
%PROMPT%	$P$G
%SYSTEMDRIVE%	C:
%SystemRoot%	C:\Windows
%TEMP% , %TMP%	C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Temp	C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Temp
%USERNAME%	{username}
%USERPROFILE%	C:\Documents and Settings\{username}	C:\Users\{username}
%WINDIR%	C:\Windows
%PUBLIC%		C:\Users\Public