>I'm not trying to argue Except ... you are - what you're describing just is not efficient Maybe you've grown accustomed to the Windows Registry - are you als

>I'm not trying to argue Except ... you are - what you're describing just is not efficient Maybe you've grown accustomed to the Windows Registry - are you also familiar with all the problems it has (vs the rock-solid, impossible to break environment variable)? >I just see so many shortcomings to PATH, specifically, the installer never knows what file to update, and it's not even available in cron jobs either. Of course an install can "know what file to update" - because it's not a file! It can put (if appropriate) a symlink to the executable into a normal location used by $PATH, or it can create its own environment variables for when it runs Or - as a last resort - it could update $PATH (a generally-bad idea, but still possible)