Recover lost PATH variable on Windows

Goal

Recover your Windows PATH variable after it has been corrupted or accidentally cleared.

Solution

Use a running application to access its inherited environment variables. Any application launched before the PATH was broken still has the correct value in memory.

Steps

1. Open a file dialog from a running application (e.g., Chrome):

Press Ctrl+O to open the file picker.

2. Launch CMD from the file picker:

Click the address bar and type:

cmd

Press Enter. This opens a command prompt that inherits Chrome’s environment.

3. Display the PATH variable:

echo %PATH%

Copy this value to restore your PATH in System Environment Variables.