Learning has never been so easy!
There are cases when software installers mess up our Windows environment variables. When the environment variables get messed up, it could lead to trouble with other programs that share the same environment variable. One such symptom is the following error in Windows:
“command” is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
2 Steps total
Step 1: Verify Program Exists
Winpcap.org is also the home of WinDump, the Windows version of the popular tcpdump tool. WinDump can be used to watch, diagnose and save to disk network traffic according to various complex rules. WinDump can be used to watch, diagnose and save to disk network traffic according to various complex rules.
Look in System32 folder and verify the program you are trying to run exists.
Step 2: Modify Environment Variables
1. Right-Click on My Computer icon
2. Select the Advanced tab
3. Click on Environment Variables
4. Under 'System Variables' locate Path and choose 'EDIT'.
5. Copy this entire string and paste it into Notepad for safe keeping.
6. Add the directory that houses your program. Example: C:WindowsSystem32;
7. Verify that you used a semi-colon followed by a space for item number 6.
8. Click 'Ok'
2. Select the Advanced tab
3. Click on Environment Variables
4. Under 'System Variables' locate Path and choose 'EDIT'.
5. Copy this entire string and paste it into Notepad for safe keeping.
6. Add the directory that houses your program. Example: C:WindowsSystem32;
7. Verify that you used a semi-colon followed by a space for item number 6.
8. Click 'Ok'
Reboot the computer to enable the new value. After rebooting, try executing the command again and verify that it fixed your problem. If it doesn’t, double check the value of the path variable again. It could be a bad syntax with the semicolons or a wrong value is entered.
7 Comments
- Ghost ChiliNick42 May 9, 2013 at 02:12pmHey Bill, any chance you can clarify #7 for our 'newer' geeks? Your example in #6 has a semicolon at the end, but #7 says comma. SeewhatImean?Truly useful tip too!
- PoblanoBill Windham May 9, 2013 at 05:54pmGood to know others are reading our articles, I posted them so my team could have access to them. I correct the mistake, #7 should have spelled semi-colon. Thank you for your input.
- Pimientojfioravanti Jul 10, 2013 at 10:28amHi Bill,Under the section 'System Variables' there is nothing labeled 'Path' on a user windows 7 machine, is there an alternative or some other place I should look? The programs are installed, and the user could use them until just this past week. When I attempted a ping, I got the 'not recognized' response and found your article, but as noted, when I go the envrionment and system variables there is no 'Path' option. Thanks for any input.
- Pimientorockyfox Aug 5, 2014 at 08:39amThis is really helpful. Its work for me. Thanks for this.
- Pimientobreek Jan 31, 2015 at 02:50pmHello Bill,
My problem is that my 1st program which I executed was working fine, and now suddenly for this 2nd program its giving me this error.. can you tell me something about that? - Pimientonavyjax2 Jun 14, 2016 at 07:29pmI ran into an issue running a console application I created from my 'Documents' folder. When I launch 'cmd', it starts at C:Users[myname]. I needed to change directories to what I thought was 'My Documents', so I did 'cd My Documents'. Windows let me do this. When I attempted to run my application, that's when I got the error. It was only when I went back and did 'cd Documents', and then re-tried to run it, that I finally got it to run!!! Windows needs to kill that vestigal organ 'My Documents' and just call it 'Documents' and quit confusing everyone!!!
- Pimientojideckchobot Jun 20, 2017 at 12:38pmI starting script from a prompt a script.cmd and that
call script2.cmdand get error 'script2.cmd' is not recognized as an internal or external command,some suggestions ?