On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Russell Yanofsky wrote:
> Jostein Chr. Andersen wrote:
> > ...
> > You should not have to reboot (this even works on NT4), a new console
> > Window should have the updated path.
> >
>
> Consoles and normal programs will see changes to environment variables as
> soon as they are restarted, but programs running as (or under) system
> services like apache won't see new environment variables until the system is
> rebooted. I'm not sure what the reason for this is, but you can easily
> verify it by writing a cgi page that print environment variables.
It's quite easy. (Permit a *SMALL* amount of handwaving here)
Processes inherit their environment from their parent process.
When you modify the environment variable PATH, that change is
not reflected in all processes. (It is reflected in some,
including the explorer process which is handling the start
menu and task bar...)
If a process which has gotten the update (explorer, etc) launches
a new cmd shell or other process, you get the new environment.
If it's launched by a process which doesn't have the updated env,
you don't. I know that's far from a definitive treatise on the
topic, but hopefully it makes it seem less magical.
What this all boils down to: Reboot windows machines liberally
after running installers... :)
---Jim
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Received on Mon Sep 8 19:58:48 2003