> I do not have admin access (work computer). Wouldn't (setenv "PATH" "..") be the same?
No.
But the fact that I am able to do so says otherwise. I removed the path customization from both user and system PATH values (I had got temp admin rights to update the system PATH in Windows), added the below to my config and now find/grep work beautifully.
(let ((ezwinports-path "C:/Users/kmodi/Dropbox/Portable Software/ezwinports/bin"))
(setq exec-path (add-to-list 'exec-path ezwinports-path))
(setenv "PATH" (concat (replace-regexp-in-string
"/" "\\\\" ezwinports-path) ";"
(getenv "PATH"))))
> If I rename the MS find.exe (which I cannot without admin aceess), will it not affect any other program using it?
Nothing uses it.
I wasn't aware of that, thanks.
> As I mentioned, I also set the PATH using (setenv "PATH "..."). Isn't executable-find returning the correct
> find.exe and grep.exe a proof that the right executable is being found.
No. See the source of executable-find.
OK, but I am able to reference to the chrome, find, grep binaryies correctly using only the tweaks to exeec-path and PATH from within emacs. I do not need to change it in Windows settings.
As executable-find uses exec-path, I think that manipulating just that suffices for applications like chrome and firefox that are not executed from shell (unlike find and grep). I am saying this from what I practically see on my Windows machine.
> I have had this in my config and it works fine (for a different executable chrome.exe):
>
> (let ((chrome-path "C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/"))
> (setq exec-path (append exec-path `(,chrome-path)))
> (setq browse-url-generic-program (executable-find "chrome")))
Bad idea, as I explained in my earlier message. You need to change
PATH _outside_ of Emacs.
Well, as mentioned earlier, changing the exec-path and doing setenv PATH from within emacs works just fine.
In summary I have this in my Windows emacs config and it works great without needing external PATH manipulation.
=====
(let ((firefox-path "C:/Users/kmodi/AppData/Local/Mozilla Firefox/"))
(setq exec-path (append exec-path `(,firefox-path))))
(let ((chrome-path "C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/"))
(setq exec-path (append exec-path `(,chrome-path)))
(setq browse-url-generic-program (executable-find "chrome")))
(let ((ezwinports-path "C:/Users/kmodi/Dropbox/Portable Software/ezwinports/bin"))
(setq exec-path (add-to-list 'exec-path ezwinports-path))
(setenv "PATH" (concat (replace-regexp-in-string "/" "\\\\" ezwinports-path)
";" (getenv "PATH"))))
=====