Create an environmental variable
We can easily use New-Item to work with the environment provider
New-Item -Path env: -Name Myenv -Value "Hello"
but this only creates a variable that lasts the duration of the PowerShell session
To create a permanent environmental variable we need to drop down to .NET
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("MyPermEnvVar", "I am here for good", "User")
If you want a Machine level variable replace “User” with “Machine”. if you use “Process” instead its the equivalent of using New-Item in our first example.
The new variable won’t be visible/usable until PowerShell is restarted.
What we need is a function that combines these two approaches.
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| function new-environment {
param (
[string][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]$name,
[string][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]$value,
[switch]$perm,
[switch]$machine
)
if (-not $perm) {New-Item -Path env:\ -Name $($name) -Value $($value)}
else {
if ($machine){$type = "Machine"}
else {$type = "User"}
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable($name, $value, $type)
}
} |