Install-ChocolateyPath Expands Variables in PATH, Overwriting Preexisting Variables #303
Comments
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Clobbering sounds strong - it's really just accidentally expanding the values, right? |
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Okay - I get it about clobbering variables in entries - might need a better way of stating this - I took it wrong on first read. |
mnadel
changed the title
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Sorry about that -- updated the title and added an example. |
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👍 |
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This seem like a reasonable approach? Would be happy to open a PR. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4598532/powershell-get-tmp-environment-variable-raw-value |
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Yep, seems reasonable - I did similar in Puppet's windows installer and planned to reimplement here at some point. Target stable branch. |
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Also make sure you read and agree to CONTRIBUTING. |
…erwriting Preexisting Variables When adding a new element to PATH, Install-ChocolateyPath reads PATH (wh ich contains expanded variables), appends the new element, and then writes the value back to PATH. This results in PATH having its variables overwritten with its values. Instead of reading $env:PATH to find the current path, read it from the registry, which will retain the PATH's original variables.
…erwriting Preexisting Variables When adding a new element to PATH, Install-ChocolateyPath reads PATH (wh ich contains expanded variables), appends the new element, and then writes the value back to PATH. This results in PATH having its variables overwritten with its values. Instead of reading $env:PATH to find the current path, read it from the registry, which will retain the PATH's original variables.
…erwriting Preexisting Variables When adding a new element to PATH, Install-ChocolateyPath reads PATH (wh ich contains expanded variables), appends the new element, and then writes the value back to PATH. This results in PATH having its variables overwritten with its values. Instead of reading $env:PATH to find the current path, read it from the registry, which will retain the PATH's original variables.
…erwriting Preexisting Variables When adding a new element to PATH, Install-ChocolateyPath reads PATH (wh ich contains expanded variables), appends the new element, and then writes the value back to PATH. This results in PATH having its variables overwritten with its values. Instead of reading $env:PATH to find the current path, read it from the registry, which will retain the PATH's original variables.
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Bumping this to 0.9.10 while waiting for updates from @mnadel |
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In reviewing this, I believe the latest commit on 30 Jul - bafe091 contains all changes per our latest conversation. Let me know if you've got any other feedback, otherwise I believe it's ready for merging. |
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@mnadel If you can review the PR, it doesn't appear to be updated yet. Example #373 (comment) |
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deleted |
…n PATH When adding a new element to PATH, Install-ChocolateyPath reads PATH (wh ich contains expanded variables), appends the new element, and then writes the value back to PATH. This results in PATH having its variables overwritten with its values. Instead of reading $env:PATH to find the current path, read it from the registry, which will retain the PATH's original variables.
- Declare argument as `switch` instead of `bool`. - Renamed some variables and added comments. - Updated references to Get-EnvironmentVariable. - Cleaned up formatting. - Allowed getting process scoped environment variables again.
* pr600-path-cont: (chocolateyGH-303) Get-EnvironmentVariable Changes (chocolateyGH-303) Install-ChocolateyPath - Do Not Expand Variables in PATH
* stable: (chocolateyGH-303) Get-EnvironmentVariable Changes (chocolateyGH-303) Install-ChocolateyPath - Do Not Expand Variables in PATH
Process environment variables should be returned immediately
* stable: (maint) installer messages / checks (GH-303) Additional fixes for process env vars (doc) update changelog
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This change had a very bad side effect.
When you don't expand the value and then you update using |
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Unbelievable! Although the information you found has very profound effects in the case of the system path - does it seem like the unintended expansion of the environment variable references themselves in the current chocolatey implementation still needs addressing? The original issue as well as the inept .NET approach both have bad implications for Chocolatey packages breaking other things on the machine if they update the path. |
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@DarwinJS I have a fix I'm testing now. This only affects the releases listed at #699 (comment) |
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@DarwinJS this actually only affects a limited number of systems. You would have had to install those beta versions directly for it to occur - here's why: #699 (comment) |
The fixes for GH-303 (e050c22) had an interesting and terrible side effect. When you don't expand the value and then you update using `[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable($Name, $Value, $Scope)`, it has the side effect of overwriting the original registry value type and saves the values as `REG_SZ` instead of keeping it as `REG_EXPAND_SZ`. Then all of the tools in WinDir no longer work all of a sudden and it's somewhat perplexing what happened as everything looks appropriate when you inspect the values. You can verify if you are affected by opening a new command line and typing `where.exe choco` and the system cannot find where.exe, which is at `C:\Windows\System32\where.exe`. You are only affected if you installed (explicitly installed, not upgraded) one of the following beta releases directly: * https://chocolatey.org/packages/chocolatey/0.9.10-beta-20160411 * https://chocolatey.org/packages/chocolatey/0.9.10-beta-20160422 * https://chocolatey.org/packages/chocolatey/0.9.10-beta-20160503 This is fixed by attempting to ask the registry what the value type is for the particular key and falling back to `REG_SZ` when it is not found. Environment variables are always either String or ExpandString. As a further step, if it is the `PATH` variable, it will always be saved as ExpandString (`REG_EXPAND_SZ`). Then set the value using `[Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::SetValue` instead because it allows setting the value type.
Removing environment variables sets empty environment variables. This is related to the changes for GH-303. So determine if the value is null or empty, and perform the older behavior.
Install-ChocolateyPath will expand all variables in your PATH, and then write back the expanded values, clobbering any variables that existed in PATH prior to Install-ChocolateyPath being called.
e.g.
%PYTHON_HOME%;C:\Utils->C:\Python27;C:\UtilsThe text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: