Just a quick tip on how to get and set environment variables using PowerShell, compared to how it is done in DOS.
List all environment variables
DOS
set
PowerShell
ls env:
Get environment variable
DOS
set {name}
set TMP
or
%{name}%
%TMP%
PowerShell
$env:{name}
$env:TMP
or
[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("{name}")
[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("TEST")
Set environment variable
DOS
set {name}={value}
set TEST=test
PowerShell
new-item -name {name} -path env: -value {value}
new-item -name TEST -path env: -value test
About scope
Keep in mind that these methods for managing environment variables are done in the context of the current user, and will only live in the current session. The environment variables are actually a mix of system and user environment variables, and can be found in the registry at these locations:
- Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment (User)
- Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment (System)
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("TestVariable", "Test value.", "User")
Here you see that we pass in the variable scope as a parameter to the method (“User” in this example, other valid values are “Machine” or “Process”).
You can also use the GetEnvironmentVariable to read environment variables from a specific “scope”. Consider the following examples:
[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Username")
[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Username","Process")
[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Username","Machine")
As we can learn from this, the default scope is Process. If we ask for the same variable from the machine scope (or level), we get SYSTEM instead, because it’s read in the context of the machine.
Communary 
Please post more expanded topic about scope of those variable. My understanding those are User ones and hence might lead to some confusion during script development when environment variables are set/read by processes running under different accounts (happened to me more the once).
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Good point Gregory. Going to add a small section about this at the end of the post. I’m not an expert on environment variables, so feel free to let me know if something is wrong, or missing 🙂
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