Setting environment variables for the system through a batch file

%0 is the name of your batch file. You can use %~dp0 with pushd to change to the directory where your batch file is located and work your way to any directory from there. So the general structure of such a batch file is :

@echo off
pushd %~dp0
rem batch file commands go here
popd

As for your Visual Studio issue... User mode environment variables are available for each process started after the environment variable has been set. But for some reason, the current process doesn't receive it. But the Explorer.exe (who handles that start menu and the run command seems to fetch a new copy of the environment each time it needs it.

A process started that way will have the new environment, whereas a process launched from the command line will inherit the old environment, without the new variables set by setx.

You can mitigate this problem by changing your batch file to both set and setx the variables.

Here is some code to get you started. It will

1. Show the current working directory
2. Change the the directory where the script resides
3. Set the variable MYTEST in the shell it's running
4. Set the variable in the user's environment
5. Launch Notepad from the shell, so you can try and open a file name %MYTEST%
   • Try it with the %, it works
   • Notice how the current directory was changed, btw.
6. Ask you to start notepad manually from the start menu

Here is the code, HTH

@echo off

::This is where we start
echo Current directory is %CD%
echo %0

::We change the current directory to where the script is running
pushd %~dp0

echo Current directory is %CD%

::if you want, you can move relatively from it
cd..

::Set an environement variable
set MYTEST=%~f0
::Make a copy avaiable to other processes
setx MYTEST "%MYTEST%"

::Now I should be able to fire notepad and open %%MYTEST%% 
::(you can use the %% sign in the open box)
::Let's start a copy from this process
::
echo Starting notepad, open the file %%MYTEST%%, you should this 
echo file thanks to the set statement.
notepad
echo Now launch Notepad from the start menu and open the file %%MYTEST%%, 
echo you should this file thanks to the setx statement.

::Wherever you end up, restore the current directory
popd

echo Current directory is %CD%

consider, you want to setup ant using bat script do the following:

echo off 
echo SETTING UP ANT FOR THE BUILD ....
set ANT_HOME=%~dp0%build\apache-ant-1.8.2
set ANT_BIN=%~dp0%build\apache-ant-1.8.2\bin

SET path=%path%;%ANT_BIN%;%ANT_BIN%;

echo PATH: %path%
echo ANT_HOME: %ANT_HOME%
echo ANT_BIN: %ANT_BIN%
echo ANT GOT INSTALLED ....