KiCAD v4 > v5, windows, environment variables / paths

…and that’s a good reason to not set them, because it’s impossible to change paths in KiCad UI if they have been set as system E.Vs. The path variables dialog isn’t very intuitive IMO when it comes to system E.Vs and it tries to be helpful with extra help texts, which is always better than nothing but almost always an indicator of bad usability.

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Does that mean that if during installation environment variables are not set KiCad will work without using them (it has another way to organise its knowledge whot is where) ?
I had 4.0.7 at Windows 7. Then I have installed fev times V5 nighties (each time clearing KiCad install directory and User KiCad directory).
I understood (today) that during that I had probably set at this computer enviornments variables for V4 and V5. How to clear them if I think I prefere to have V5 without them if I can.
In DOS times I know many things happening in my PC, but since Windows I really know nothing. Is there any autoexec.but (if remember well) setting environment variables to look into it and delete fev lines?

They can be disabled in Win7 with the following command (Win10 is likely something similar):
Start->(right-click)Computer->Properties->Advanced System Settings->Environment Variables

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I am very surprised.
Właściwości = Properties
Zaawansowane = Advanced
Zmienne środowiskowe = Environment Variables


And I see nothing in any way connected with KiCad.
I have at this computer 4.0.7 installed long time ago (I think all checked during installation except only Polish and English doc/help files).
Then after uninstalling 4.0.7 (and deleting user kicad directory I installed (full) nightly.
Then few times after uninstalling previous nightly I installed next one but without libraries.

Current state is I have V5 (may be 2 weeks old) working here and see no KiCad variables.

I suppose (no time to make experiments now):

  • uninstalling KiCad deletes its variables
  • installing without libraries may be don’t sets variables as I understand they are used to point where libraries are.

If I am right that means you need not to worry about how to clean environment variables.

The other subject is I don’t remember during installtion the flag for variables but that only means that I don’t remember :slight_smile:

  1. Yes.
  2. Setting the variables is independent from existence of the libraries.

So I don’t understand why I don’t see any KiCad variables in that lower window. I can’t show at screenshot all what is there so list by hand: ComSpec, FP_NO_HOST_C…, NUMBER_OF_P…, OS, Path, PATHEXT, PROCESSOR_A…, PROCESSOR_ID…, PROCESSOR_R…, PSModulePatha, TEMP, TMP, USERNAME, windir, windows_tracin…, windows_tracin…
Is anyone of them in any way connected with KiCad. KiCad nightly is installed (without libraries) at this PC.

It’s exactly as it should be. There’s no need for system environment variables. All you need is the KiCad “Configure Paths” dialog and the correct paths there. What does that dialog show?

BTW, this discussion should be in some other thread, could a moderator move this?

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I understood what you said 2 days ago:

that KiCad V5 sets itself some environment variables and better is to not use them. And I supposed that as I’ve installed V5 not thinking about it I have that variables set and may be I should find them and delete.
As they are not there I am happy.

I will reinstal V5 after ‘KiCad cleaning the PC’ so not inportant what is there now. With 4.0.7 I had no problems with it.

A post was split to a new topic: Why you need environment variables

Please stay on topic and don’t derail the thread. Thank you.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Why you need environment variables

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