The following problem can be annoying even if you have 5 servers, but even more nerve wrecking if you experience it on 100+ servers - at my favorite time - on a Monday morning.
Usually there are applications installed on a server - why would we need them otherwise. Some applications need to access their files without full path of those therefore they update the
PATH environment variable. This is all well because most of the developers know how to do it nicely, but I've come across some applications in my 10+ years of IT experience which I still cannot get my head around.
The PATH environment variable is basically a list of folders separated by ; (semicolons). And even though no one says it, the order of these entries does matter. E.g.: there are applications which - for whatever unspoken reason - add entries to the beginning (!) of this list. Now, if you read the previous 2 sentences carefully, you can have an idea why this is a very bad idea:
The entries in the PATH are evaluated in order, that's why the OS puts stuff in there first (like C:\WINDOWS, C:\WINDOWS\System32...etc.) because there are lot of files there and it's quicker to run a server if you know that most of the queries for files via PATH will be served by the first couple of items. If you put entries to the beginning which are only important for some applications and for just minor number of queries, you basically make your system slower.
Even worse, if - for whatever unspoken reason - there are applications which put PATH entries to the beginning of the variable which refer to either mapped network drives or UNC path, then you can be in trouble. E.g. when there was one such on a couple of servers and surprise, the box got hung on boot-up because the custom disk manager wanted to look-up some files and hit a PATH entry pointing to a UNC path before the custom SMB engine was initialised. Nice.
Side notes:
- There can also be an issue with older applications which can only handle up to 1024 characters of the PATH - even though since Windows 2003 SP1 and WinXP SP2 the supported length of PATH is 2048 characters
- in Powershell (or rather .NET framework), the Add-Type command fails if there are invalid entries in the PATH
Solutions:
To resolve the 2 issues above ((1) make sure the PATH has a desired order and (2) it is as short as possible) you can do a couple of things:
- remove the last backslash from each entry - this saves some characters and makes it easier to spot duplicates later:
foreach($item in $tmpdataArray){
if($item[-1] -eq "\"){$item = $item -replace "\\$",""}
$dataArray += $item
}
- remove duplicate entries from the PATH:
$newTmpdataArray = $dataArray | Sort-Object -Unique -Descending
- if the length is still a problem, consider converting long folder names to the old 8.3 type names, e.g.:
$newdata = $newdata -ireplace "\\program files\\", "\progra~1\"
- put entries to the beginning which are needed for the OS and put any "external path" (UNC, mapped drives) to the end or remove them if possible, e.g. put all c:\Windows entries to the beginning and put all UNC ones to the end:
$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayBeginning $newTmpdataArray "c:\\windows"$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayEnd $newTmpdataArray "^\\\\"
- always backup the original value!
 |
| Script's output showing the original and the new PATH values and their length |
Functions
BackupPATH
It reads how many backup values exist already, increments the number and creates a new value with the current content of PATH
MoveToArrayBeginning
It runs through an array and adds items to a temp array. If an item matches a given pattern it adds the item to the beginning of the array otherwise it adds it to the end. The key piece is this, which adds the element to the array as either the first or last item:
$farray | %{
if($_ -imatch $pattern){
[Void]$newArray.Insert(0,$_)
}
else{
[Void]$newArray.add($_)
}
}
MoveToArrayEnd
It collects all items matching a pattern to a temp array and then removes and adds those to the end of the original array. It needs the temp array to preserve the original order of the items being moved to the end.
param ( [string] $hosts = "",
[string] $log = "",
[switch] $set = $false,
[switch] $rollback = $false,
[switch] $convertToSortName = $false,
[switch] $IknowWhatIamDoing = $false)
#### Function for creating/writing registry value remotely
function CreateRegValue ([string]$srv, [string]$value, [string]$newdata, [string]$key) {
$regKey = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine',$srv).OpenSubKey($key,$true).SetValue($value, $newdata,'string')
if(-not $?){
return $false
}
return $true
}
Function BackupPATH($srv, $data){
#backing up the original value
$sequenceNumber = 0
# create managePATHVariable subkey if doesn't exist
if(!([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine',$srv).OpenSubKey('SOFTWARE\PATHBackup'))){
[Void][Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine',$srv).OpenSubKey('SOFTWARE',$true).CreateSubKey('SOFTWARE\PATHBackup')
}
else{
$backupValues = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine',$srv).OpenSubKey('SOFTWARE\PATHBackup').getvaluenames()
#get latest number sequence for backup value name
$latestBackupValueName = $backupValues | ?{$_ -imatch "^PATH_backup"} | sort -Descending | Select -first 1
[int]$sequenceNumber = [regex]::match($latestBackupValueName, "\d+$").value
$sequenceNumber++
}
$newBackupValueName = "PATH_backup_" + $sequenceNumber
# Backing up original value to HKLM\SOFTWARE\PATHBackup [$newBackupValueName]..." "nonew"
if(CreateRegValue $srv $newBackupValueName $data "SOFTWARE\PATHBackup"){
write-host "Backup OK"
}
else{
write-host "Backup error"
exit
}
}
#### Function for reading registry value remotely
function GetRegValue ([string]$srv, [string]$value, [string]$key) {
$regvalue = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine',$srv).OpenSubKey($key).GetValue($value)
return $regvalue
}
#### Function for moving array items to the beginning of the array
function MoveToArrayBeginning ($farray, $pattern ) {
$newArray = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
$farray | %{
if($_ -imatch $pattern){
[Void]$newArray.Insert(0,$_)
}
else{
[Void]$newArray.add($_)
}
}
return $newArray
}
#### Function for moving array items to the end of the array
function MoveToArrayEnd ($farray, $pattern) {
# we need a new .net array because the function will get a PS array (which doesn;t have .remove method)
$newArray = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
$itemsToRemove = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
[Void]$newArray.addRange($farray)
# collect all items that need to be moved to the end
$farray | %{
if($_ -imatch $pattern){
[Void]$itemsToRemove.add($_)
}
}
# go through the items need moving and remove/add them to the end of the original array
$itemsToRemove | %{
[Void]$newArray.remove($_)
[Void]$newArray.add($_)
}
return $newArray
}
$objColl = @()
$k = 1
#### Collate the host list.
$hostlist = @($Input)
if ($hosts) {
if($hosts -imatch " "){
$hostsArr = @($hosts.split(" "))
$hostlist += $hostsArr
}
else{
$hostlist += $hosts
}
}
$hostlistlength = ($hostlist | measure).count
if($hostlistlength -gt 0){
foreach ($hosts in $hostlist) {
$srv = $hosts
if($srv -ne ""){ # if the hostname is not empty
Write-Progress -activity "Performing PATH checks/changes" -Status "Processing host $k of $hostlistlength : $srv " -PercentComplete ($k/$hostlistlength * 100) -currentoperation "Checking if remote host is accessible..."
$oldlength = $data = $null
$tmpdataArray = $dataArray = $newTmpdataArray = @()
$sObject = "" | select ComputerName,OldValue,OldValueLength,NewValue,NewValueLength,Duplicates,Result
$sObject.ComputerName = $srv
$data = GetRegValue $srv "PATH" "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment"
if($data){ # if reg data is not empty
$oldlength = $data.length
$sObject.OldValue = $data
$sObject.OldValueLength = $oldlength
$tmpdataArray = $data.split(";") # splitting string to array by ;
#remove last \ from each entry in $dataArray to make sure we pick up the duplicates which only differ in a \ at the end
foreach($item in $tmpdataArray){
if($item[-1] -eq "\"){$item = $item -replace "\\$",""}
$dataArray += $item
}
# 0. sort descending order
$newTmpdataArray = $dataArray | Sort-Object -Unique -Descending # building a new array without duplicate items
# record duplicate entries for listing them in the output
$duplicateEntries = @()
$testHashTable = @{}
$dataArray | foreach {$testHashTable["$_"] += 1}
$testHashTable.keys | where {$testHashTable["$_"] -gt 1} | foreach {
$duplicateEntries += $_
}
$sObject.Duplicates = [string]::Join(";",$duplicateEntries)
# re-add the array elemnets to a new array with array type: System.Collections.ArrayList, this supports elements removal and addition
$newdataArray = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
[void]$newdataArray.AddRange($newTmpdataArray)
# 1. put all c:\program files to the beginning
$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayBeginning $newTmpdataArray "C:\\progra~"
$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayBeginning $newTmpdataArray "C:\\program files"
# 2. put all c:\windows to the beginning
$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayBeginning $newTmpdataArray "c:\\windows"
# 3. put all %variabe% to the end
$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayEnd $newTmpdataArray "^%"
# 4. put all non-c: drives to the end
$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayEnd $newTmpdataArray "^[a-bd-z]:"
# 5. put all unc path to the end
$newTmpdataArray = MoveToArrayEnd $newTmpdataArray "^\\\\"
# converting array to string with separator ;
$newdata = [string]::join(";", $newTmpdataArray)
# check if the PATH contains Program files anr replace it with the 8.3 name
if($convertToSortName){
if ($data -imatch "program files") {
$newdata = $newdata -ireplace "\\program files\\", "\progra~1\" #trim the path by replacing "program files" with "progra~1"
$newdata = $newdata -ireplace "\\program files (x86)\\", "\progra~2\" #trim the path by replacing "program files (x86)" with "progra~2"
}
}
if(($newdata.Length -lt $data.Length) -or ($data -ine $newdata)){ # if the new string is shorter
if($set) {
BackupPATH $srv $data
#Writing new PATH value to HKLM\"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" [$value]
CreateRegValue $srv "PATH" $newdata "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment"
# Checking if new PATH value is set
$checkdata = GetRegValue $srv "PATH" "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" # read it again to check an log the new registry data
$newlength = $checkdata.length
if($checkdata -ieq $newdata){
$sObject.Result = "OK"
}
else{
$sObject.Result = "Could not set new value"
}
}
else{
$checkdata = $newdata
$newlength = $checkdata.length
$sObject.Result = "PATH would be changed (use -set)"
}
$sObject.NewValue = $newdata
$sObject.NewValueLength = $newlength
}
else{
$sObject.Result = "No need to change PATH"
}
}
else{
$sObject.Result = "Could not get PATH from registry"
}
}
$objColl += $sObject
}
}
else{
write-host "No hostname or hostlist is specified."
}
$objColl
t
