Is it possible to make the Windows Path Variable check all the folders within a specified folder?

August 25, 2006 8:05 PM

Is it possible to make the Windows Path Variable check all the folders within a specified folder?

Is it possible to make the Windows Path Variable check all the folders within a specified folder? I.E. If I have C:/myfolder, can I make it look within all folders in myfolder without specifying each manually?

posted by tnoetz01 to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

No, for good reasons.
posted by orthogonality at 8:07 PM on August 25, 2006

No. It's just a string. It can't do anything.
posted by curtm at 9:16 PM on August 25, 2006

No -- but I'm curious to hear the reasons, as this would seem like a useful feature.
posted by lunchbox at 11:32 PM on August 25, 2006

Precedence, for one. If you had app.exe in one folder, & another app.exe in a subfolder, which one would be executed? Why? The PATH variable is ordered for a reason.

That said, an app reading a PATH variable can interpret it however it wants. if it wants to search all subdirectories for a specific file, it can.

Nitpick: folders are the graphic representation of directories. Folders don't actually exist.
posted by devilsbrigade at 3:21 AM on August 26, 2006

The Windows resource kit includes PATHMAN.exe
I can't think why you'd want to do this, but it wouldn't be too hard to write a script that scans all the subfolders and adds every one to the path using PATHMAN
posted by Lanark at 4:54 AM on August 26, 2006