Shorter version:
gci env:* | sort-object name
This will display both the name and value.
Answer from jaymjarri on Stack OverflowPlease help me understand the purpose of environments in PowerShell
PowerShell command to add the environment variable
How to print all environment variables by scope? e.g. Process, Machine and User
List the variables and their values in a script (ISE)
Run "Get-Variable" as you open up the ISE and save the result to a variable, then when you want to check new variables you can run it again, but exclude the values you originally had.
$DefaultVariables=Get-Variable Get-Variable -Exclude ($DefaultVariables.Name + "DefaultVariables")More on reddit.com
How do I list all variables in PowerShell?
To list all variables in your PowerShell session, you can use:
Get-ChildItem Env:
This command will show all currently defined variables in the session, including environment variables.
How to set an environment variable using PowerShell?
To set an environment variable, you can use the following syntax.
$Env:VariableName = “Value”
Replace VariableName with the desired name of your variable and Value with the value you want to assign to it, as example below.
$Env:MY_VAR = “MyValue”
How to check if an environment variable exists in PowerShell?
To check if a specific environment variable exists, you can use the following command.
Test-Path Env:MY_VAR Replace MY_VAR with the name of the environment variable you want to check. If the variable exists, it will return True; if not, it will return False.
Videos
Hi all!,
I am a beginner in PowerShell and trying to learn to advance myself outside of my desktop support job. I took a coding video course on Udemy and code academy and I am not trying to do solo with the help of chatgpt for guidance while looking at another udemy course strictly catered to AD use of PowerShell. While I was looking at tutorial videos, these videos have mentions briefly about the purpose of environments and I just dont really understand there use case since they look similar to variables. I tried using catgut to help me understand but I'm still getting confused about its purpose and use case. Are they similar to environments like in docker(brief learned about it)?
Any tutorial videos that explain about this would be greatly appreciated!
Hi @Varma ,
system variabeles can be set in PowerShell like this (admin permission is required to modify/add system variables !):
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("MYNewVariable", "MyTestValue", "Machine")
An existing variable can be read via PowerShell like this:
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("MYNewVariable", "MyTestValue", "Machine")
[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path","Machine")
(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)
Regards
Andreas Baumgarten
Hi @ Varma,
this looks fine for me:
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("JAVA_HOME", "C:\Program files\Java\jdk-21", "Machine")
To add %JAVA_HOME% to your PATH variable you need to read the current value of the PATH variable and add the %JAVA_HOME% value. Something like this (NOT TESTED):
$addValue = "%JAVA_HOME%"
$oldvalues = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH","Machine")
$newValue = $oldValues + " `r`n "+ $addValue
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", "$newValue", "Machine")
"Machine")
(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)
Regards
Andreas Baumgarten
Is there a way to print all environment variables by scope? Ideally I want to be able to create a cmdlet like the following
-
PrintEnvVariables -Scope Machine -
PrintEnvVariables -Scope User -
PrintEnvVariables -Scope Process
This is how I'm setting the environment variables at the moment
Process level
$env:procVar = 'some proc var'
User level
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('myUserVar', 'some user val', [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User)Machine Level
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('myMachvar', 'some mach val', [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)Now I know I can do something like
gci env:
But this just dumps all environment variables from all scopes. I even tried
gci env: | select *
To see if there is any members I can filter by but there doesn't seem to be anything
PSPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Environment::myUserVar PSDrive : Env PSProvider : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Environment PSIsContainer : False Name : myUserVar Key : myUserVar Value : some user val