Environment variables in path are not expanded in integrated terminal or Code-launched command prompt

[rummelsworth]

• VSCode Version: 1.12.1
• OS Version: Windows 10 Pro 1607 14393.969

Steps to reproduce

1. Have node installed and on your path.
2. Launch integrated terminal (PowerShell).
3. Type node, press enter.

The terminal output is node : The term 'node' is not recognized [...].

Recognition of node still fails if I instead first enter cmd (which works and opens a subshell) and try it there.

More details

Also occurs for npm and nvm, but not for git. Built-ins and other standard things (like dir, cmd, notepad, etc) work fine.

I use nvm-windows. It's managing 7.4.0 and 7.9.0 for me. This behavior happens when using either.

Was occurring in non-integrated CMD and PS terminals until I restarted my computer. After restarting my computer, non-integrated terminals do not show this behavior (and so are a workaround for me right now). I had not restarted my computer since initially updating from 1.11 to 1.12.0 a few days ago, and I hadn't tried any of this since before that.

[Tyriar]

@wrummler What's the output of this?

Get-ChildItem Env:Path

Also can you share your settings.json file?

[rummelsworth]

Within integrated terminal (unexpanded NVM path variables):

> $Env:Path
C:\Python27\;C:\Python27\Scripts;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;%NVM_HOME%;%NVM_SYMLINK%;C:\Users\wrummler\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\wrummler\AppData\Local\Programs\Git\cmd;C:\Users\wrummler\AppData\Local\atom\bin

Within standalone terminal (correctly expanded path variables):

> $Env:Path
C:\Python27\;C:\Python27\Scripts;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Users\wrummler\AppData\Roaming\nvm;C:\Program Files\nodejs;C:\Users\wrummler\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\wrummler\AppData\Local\Programs\Git\cmd;C:\Users\wrummler\AppData\Local\atom\bin

Same contrasting behavior when I switch to CMD as integrated terminal shell.

User settings:

{
    "editor.renderWhitespace": "all",
    "editor.rulers": [80],
    "editor.minimap.enabled": true,
    "workbench.iconTheme": "vs-seti",
    "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\Sysnative\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe",
    "window.zoomLevel": 0
}

Workspace settings:

{
  "files.exclude": {
    "**/.git": true,
    "src/**/*.js": true
  }
}

[Tyriar]

@daviwil @joaomoreno have you ever seen this? Environment variables in the %PATH% not being expanded?

[rummelsworth]

Another possibly interesting detail:

When I launch a standalone terminal from within Code via Ctrl+Shift+C and run echo %path%, the output shows the unexpanded variables.

When I launch a standalone terminal otherwise (e.g. Windows key; "cmd"; Enter key) and run echo %path%, the output shows the correct expansions.

[joaomoreno]

Never seen this, no.

[rummelsworth]

Another detail:

When I run Code as administrator, this doesn't happen. Environment variables expand as expected.

Why would this behavior have changed from 1.11 to 1.12? Is it really a change with Code or is it some coincidence with my particular machine and account configuration? (Not demanding answers, just trying to actively rubberduck.)

[af4jm]

I'm seeing a different symptom of what is probably the same issue...

The following in settings.json fails to start the shell with error code 1, replacing the environment variable with the hard-coded path works, as does putting "%GIT_HOME%\git-cmd.exe" --command=usr/bin/bash.exe into Start > Run...

"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "%GIT_HOME%\\git-cmd.exe",
"terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["--command=usr/bin/bash.exe"],

Work-around, of course, is to hard-code the path, but I'm syncing settings between different computers where that path is on different drives, which makes integrated-terminal a non-starter for me until either this is fixed or VSCode supports multiple terminals on a platform.

[Tyriar]

@af4jm that one is a separate issue and needs VS Code to expand the variables, I suspect the OP's issue is related to PowerShell misbehaving.

[rummelsworth]

@Tyriar Command Prompt terminals demonstrate this behavior as well. The common factor is that the affected terminals are all launched by Code. Terminals launched outside of Code expand variables normally. Also, Code's terminals expand variables normally when running Code as an administrator (with a local machine account, vs. my "normal" account on my corporate domain).

[sdwarwick]

have you folks noticed that powershell user-defined functions and aliases are also not read when invoking a powershell from inside vscode?

I'm thinking that this may be a related issue and wanted to check with you before registering a new issue.

user alises are defined in user\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

ctrl-shift c creates powershell window, but user aliases are not read

[tyelford]

I am having the same issue with my home PC.

I just downloaded VS code on my work PC this morning and no troubles with environment variables in integrated terminal. Tonight I downloaded the same version of VS code on my home PC and environment variables are not expanding, same issue as OP described.

Both PCs are Windows 10 and up-to-date, the only different I can tell is that my work PC is AD joined and my home PC has an MS account.

[rummelsworth]

Today, after upgrading to VS Code 1.13 and also this Windows update "2017-06 Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KB3150513)" (and restarting my machine), I can no longer reproduce this issue.

Unfortunately, I did not check with 1.13 prior to installing the Windows update, so I don't know whether it was 1.13 by itself.

I could still reproduce the problems even just a few days ago, i.e. after I'd received "2017-05 Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KB3150513)" on May 31.

I got some other updates a couple days ago, all of them for Office 2016 32-bit. Probably irrelevant, but mentioning it anyway for the sake of quasi-completeness.

[tyelford]

@wrummler what you mentioned also fixed my issue. I already had that windows update installed and version 1.13. The restart is what did it for me. The strange thing is that I did not have to restart my work PC.

[rummelsworth]

I can reproduce the issue again after updating to Code 1.13.1. Restarting my machine will "fix" it for a couple hours, but then the behavior comes back.

[byte2pixel]

I have this same problem. commands like npm, node, ng etc all work from a command prompt launched from windows. However the integrated terminal does not work. I'm using 1.15.1

[TechMky]

@wrummler
Hi, I see you've mentioned about the environment variables not expanding correctly when the VSCode is not running in admin mode.
Can you elaborate as to why this may be and if there's any solution to it?
I am working on an application and I'm having the same issues.

[rummelsworth]

@TechMky I have no idea, unfortunately. I haven't had it happen again in quite a while, maybe a month or more now. My only guesses are either (a) it was fixed incidentally with some change to the integrated terminal (which has seen a lot of activity in the past couple months), or (b) it was due to some opaque and perhaps quasi-random corporate policy setting on my workstation at my job, and my employer's IT folks changed something in the automatic remote configuration they perform over their network. Sorry to not be able to help!

[notAlaanor]

It seems I'm having this issue too. npm, nvm & node aren't recognized in the integrated terminal unless I run Code as Administrator, pretty much exactly what wrummler said. I'm running the latest Windows, and the issue started overnight, no desktop restart or anything or the sort.

[davidgiessing]

I also happen to have this problem. I am using the wsl bash as integrated terminal and have defined a variable "SOME_VAR" : "/some/path/to/somewhere" in settings.json (terminal.integrated.env.windows) which I use as a home directory in tasks.json. But ${env:SOME_VAR} will not be resolved / resolved to nothing. I tried running as administrator but it did not work for me.

[pmullhaupt]

Not sure if this will help but I was able to set environment variables and append to the integrated terminal Path variable by adding the following settings, (using Windows PowerShell as the terminal):

Add new environment variables:

"terminal.integrated.env.windows": {
    "PYTHONPATH":"C:/Miniconda2/envs/Advisor/python.exe",
    "PYTHONHOME": "C:/Miniconda2/envs/Advisor"
},


Prepend c:\test to the Path environment variable:

"terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["-ExecutionPolicy", "RemoteSigned", "-NoExit", "$env:path=\"c:\\test;$env:path\""],


Append c:\test to the Path environment variable:

"terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["-ExecutionPolicy", "RemoteSigned", "-NoExit", "$env:path+=\";c:\\test\""]

[danhyman]

I'm having the exact same issue. Windows 10, VS code version 1.18.1. Could it be an issue with the IDE impersonating your user context to launch the session? I do have UAC set on medium settings. I haven't tried disabling UAC yet but it may get to that point if nothing else works.

[dofun12]

Try that

"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe", "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["/k","C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\nodevars.bat"]

[inliquid]

@tyelford Wtf? I recently subscribed to this issue because seen exact same magical behavior when variables are not available UNTIL computer restart. VS Code restart didn't help. It's definitely not an issue of Windows, because in any other place such as cmd or power shell everything worked as expected.

[Tyriar]

@inliquid are you certain you closed all VS Code windows? The terminal environment is derived from the single "main process" of VS Code which only goes down and gets a refreshed environment after all windows are closed down.

There is also another issue open around fetching a fresh environment block on Windows for terminals which won't be closing 👉 #47816

[inliquid]

@Tyriar I'm pretty sure of what I'm doing.

[Tyriar]

@inliquid the next time it happens you can open devtools (via Help menu), go to the console and check process.env to see if the variable is there. You can also see what environment the terminal is being launched with by enabling trace logging (https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/wiki/Terminal-Issues#enabling-trace-logging) and opening a terminal. Both of those would be useful to see.

[Systemcluster]

Similar issue here, VSCode doesn't correctly expand system environment variables. Latest VSCode version, Windows 10.

Partial output of process.env.Path in the dev tools, note the un-expanded %LOCALAPPDATA%:

"%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\.cargo\bin;%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Python\Python37\;%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Python\Python37\Scripts\;"

Also of note is that USERPROFILE is resolved to C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile instead of the actual user profile directory.

The referenced variable does exist and is also listed by VSCode under process.env. USERPROFILE is also the correct one there.

Same with $env:Path in an integrated terminal:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\.cargo\bin;%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Python\Python37\;%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Python\Python37\Scripts\;

In an external, regularly launched terminal (Powershell or CMD) everything is expanded like expected:

C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\Chris\.cargo\bin;C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\;C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\Scripts\;

I will check if I notice anything in trace log when I get the time.

Looking at the USERPROFILE resolution, it looks like the expansion somehow happens before the other variables are loaded, which I think is not the right approach?

[Tyriar]

@joaomoreno @deepak1556 @bpasero have you ever got reports on the main processes' environment variables not being resolved properly? This definitely isn't a terminal issue as the window process.env has the problem.

[bpasero]

main processes' environment variables not being resolved properly

You mean our call to getShellEnvironment()?

[Tyriar]

@bpasero not sure if that's to blame but it does fetch the environment. I've never reproduced this problem but %VARS% are popping up in process.env for some users when they are meant to be resolved when we fetch the env.

[joaomoreno]

getShellEnvironment() is a noop in Windows, it's only for Linux/macOS.

I believe this is a Windows issue: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25324354/windows-batch-files-what-is-variable-expansion-and-what-does-enabledelayedexpa Not sure each process is responsible to compute the expansion if they are spawned in an environment in which vars aren't already expanded...

[Tyriar]

@joaomoreno should it not be a noop and we expand there just in case they're not already for some reason?

[joaomoreno]

I'm pretty sure you'd break other stuff by doing that: variable values containing two % characters in them, not meant to be expanded, for one.

[Systemcluster]

How do regularly launched CMD and Powershell have properly expanded variables then? There has to exist a standard mechanism that Microsoft is using for those I assume.

I also think that %USERPROFILE% is resolved to the non-existing path C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile in VSCode when it is used in the system variables instead of the user variables is relevant to look at. VSCode simply seems to not take user-variables into account which are supposed to overwrite system variables, and instead falls back to the system defaults.

I noticed the user profile directory is stored in the Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<user-profile> key as a REG_EXPAND_SZ value which is different for each user. The value VSCode uses is the system default value for this key instead of the user key.

On that page is a reference to the ExpandEnvironmentStringsA function that is supposed to "Expand environment-variable strings and replaces them with the values defined for the current user".

It might be as simple as calling that function on startup? It would then only be important to call it with the raw unexpanded strings instead of those already expanded with system defaults as is happening now.

[Tyriar]

@Systemcluster might have something to do with it; are you using the system install or the user install?

[Systemcluster]

@Tyriar I'm using the user install (in AppData).

[Tyriar]

@TylerLeonhardt might have asked you before but do you know why some env variables would not get resolved properly by the time we get them? If we try to resolve them potentially again we could break things (eg. have %FOO% as a already resolved value of an environment variable?).

[Systemcluster]

This issue might be related. It's a bit older, but describes the same observation as in my comment above and contains some additional context.

[mestriga]

Since it happens erratically, with expandable variables that contains other expandable variables, maybe it's related to the behavior of CreateEnvironmentBlock that is described here:
MS KB2480007: CreateEnvironmentBlock(,,FALSE) function does not expand REG_EXPAND_SZ type environment variables on Windows Server 2008 R2.
"This is by design. It is not guaranteed that the CreateEnvironmentBlock function will fully expand the REG_EXPAND_SZ environment variables that require the expansion of other REG_EXPAND_SZ environment variable (...) In order to ensure the full expansion of the environment variables in the block, use the ExpandEnvironmentStrings or ExpandEnvironmentStringsForUser functions."

[Tyriar]

It's looking more and more like this is not something we can fix on our end. On Windows we just use the environment we're given by node in electron afaik, if it's not expanded as expected it should be fixed where ever the native calls are that are creating the environment block in the first place.

[vscodebot]

This issue has been closed automatically because it needs more information and has not had recent activity. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!

[cawoodm]

Sorry to barge in here but it seems VSCode's PowerShell instance sees neither my own User Environment Variables not the System Environment variables. How can I set an environment variable once and for all which VSCode sees??