Backup windows environmental variables

There are 2 places to add or edit windows environmental variable

• User variables [i.e Current user]
• System variables [i.e common to all users]

Problem

There are situations when you want to restore environmental variables, situations may be accidentally you have deleted variables or system crashed or you changed your computer…

We will see different ways we can backup environmental variables for future references

Solution

Method1

Open command prompt, type “SET” and enter
C:\Users\userName>set

this will list all the environmental settings on your machine.

You can even push the result displayed in to a text file
C:\Users\u0146751>set >> c:\envSetttings.txt
This command will help you to write all your environmental settings to a text file envSettings.txt under C:\ drive. [You can provide your own file name and path]

Method2

Backup the environment registry

Open registry – Start | Run | regedit 

Navigate to

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager

Click on the Environment folder, and this will list all the system variables set for your machine

to backup, click on File | Export and save as .reg or .txt format

•  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment

This will list all the environment variables set for the current user

to backup, click on File | Export and save as .reg or .txt format