How to: Add Tool Locations to the PATH Environment Variable

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Applies to: SharePoint Foundation 2010

This topic explains how to add certain paths that are critical to SharePoint Foundation development to the PATH environment variable of your development computer.

We recommend that you add the following paths to the PATH variable:

Path to add

Tools at the path

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\BIN\

Several tools for SharePoint Foundation development, including psconfig.exe, spmetal.exe, and stsadm.exe.

C:\Program Files (x86) \Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\x64\

Many general development tools, including gacutil.exe, ildasm.exe, sn.exe, sqlmetal.exe, and windiff.exe.

To add a path to the PATH environment variable

  1. On the Start menu, right-click Computer.

  2. On the context menu, click Properties.

  3. In the System dialog box, click Advanced system settings.

  4. On the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box, click Environment Variables.

  5. In the System Variables box of the Environment Variables dialog box, scroll to Path and select it.

  6. Click the lower of the two Edit buttons in the dialog box.

  7. In the Edit System Variable dialog box, scroll to the end of the string in the Variable value box and add a semicolon (;).

  8. Add the new path after the semicolon.

  9. Click OK in three successive dialog boxes, and then close the System dialog box.

Tip

If Visual Studio is open when you make changes to system environment variables, it will not recognize the changes until you close and reopen it.