Can I set an environment variable for an application using a shortcut in Windows?
Solution 1:
As explained here: http://www.labs64.com/blog/2012/06/set-environment-variables-in-windows-shortcut/ you can do it without a bat file too.
Set Target to e.g.:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "SET path=%path%&& START /D ^"C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++^" notepad++.exe"
To avoid see the command prompt for a split second before it close again, you should set
Run: Minimized
on the Shortcut tab
(Tested on Windows 7, Windows 10)
Solution 2:
Let the shortcut execute a batch file (.cmd), that
- Sets the environment variable
- execute the app
- You use "START" to execute the app, this will start the app in another process, but it will copy the environment. You do not wait for the app to finish.
- Now you can exit the batch file.
Should look like this:
@echo off
set path=%path%;C:\My Folder
start "Window Title" "Path to my exe"
Solution 3:
Linking directly to a batch file spawns an annoying console that you probably want to avoid. Here's a work-around. The simpler solution is to use the "Start Minimized" option in your link, but on Windows 7 you'll see a momentary console light up your task bar.
start.bat:
@echo off
IF "%1" == "" GOTO Error
IF "%2" == "" GOTO Error
IF NOT EXIST %2 GOTO Error
SET PATH=%1;%PATH%
start %2
GOTO End
:Error
echo Problem!
pause
:End
shortcut target:
MyPath = "C:\MyApp"
Set shell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
cmd = "start.bat " & MyPath & " MyApp.exe"
shell.Run cmd, 0, false
Set env = Nothing
Set shell = Nothing
Solution 4:
You can do this with PowerShell easily. PowerShell exposes environment variables using the $env: prefix. For example, I wanted to launch TeamSQL with custom JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables, so I could connect to a PostgreSQL database. TeamSQL depends on JDK / OpenJDK for this purpose.
First, I downloaded pre-built OpenJDK and extracted the ZIP archive with 7-Zip.
Next, in PowerShell, I ran the following:
$env:JAVA_HOME='C:\Users\TrevorSullivan\Downloads\openjdk\jdk-11.0.2\'
$env:PATH += ';%JAVA_HOME%\bin'
# Launch TeamSQL
& C:\Users\TrevorSullivan\AppData\Local\Programs\TeamSQL\TeamSQL.exe
Store that PowerShell code in a .ps1 file, and you can run it with PowerShell. Because child processes inherit the environment variables from the PowerShell session, your program is good to go.