kentroup
11-08-2007, 09:36 AM
Yesterday I encountered a problem that had me scratching my head for a few minutes. I tried to start Spyware Doctor (portable) but a file could not be found.Certain other programs I clicked on would just bring up error messages along the lines of 'file could not be found'. I checked the file names and paths carefully and they seemed to be in order. I then ran a little test in dos and found that, inexplicably, %systemdrive% was being treated as %systemroot%. This means that something had altered my Windows Environment Variable to treat references to the C: drive as now being c:\windows. No wonder files could not be found. I had been playing around with several new programs before this so I could not blame any one of them. Rather than solve the mystery I just restored my Acronis backup image and the problem has not happened again.
If you encounter these sort of error messages, check your environment variables by opening a dos window - click Start/Run and type cmd. In the dos window type SET to see the standard windows variables or SET " to see additional ones.
Carefully check that the syntax and paths are in order.
If you encounter these sort of error messages, check your environment variables by opening a dos window - click Start/Run and type cmd. In the dos window type SET to see the standard windows variables or SET " to see additional ones.
Carefully check that the syntax and paths are in order.