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How to Add or Edit PATH Environment Variable in Windows 11/10

How to change environment variables without admin rights?

Granting administrative rights may not be so simple when the PC is not yours, but you can still make changes to your environment variables. Through the control panel, you can change environment variables on a user account, but not system variables. Here's how:

  • Open the control panel
  • Select to show them as "small icons" and click on User Accounts
  • Here you will see an option to your left named "Edit my environment variables"
  • This will open the same Environment Variables dialog as before, except system variables are no longer accessible and you can only make changes to user variables.

TIP :Rapid Environment Editor is a powerful free environment variable editor for Windows.

How to change path in windows command prompt?

A command line on your windows terminal (command prompt) can help you add a path to your Path environment variable. The changes we discussed above can also be implemented through the command prompt, but again, they are limited to the user's environment only. Here's how:

  • Search for "CMD" in the taskbar search menu and select it to run as administrator
  • Enter the command 'Pathman /au' and follow it with the path to the directory you want to add.
  • Similarly, you can use a 'Pathman /ru' command to remove an existing path to a directory

We hope you found this article helpful and that you can now easily take care of your Path environment variables.