List of Environment Variables in Windows XP, Vista and 7

Environment variables work like placeholder or alias for drives, file/folder names and various paths. We here at AskVG frequently use environment variables reference in our tutorials like %windir%\Resources, %programfiles%\Internet Explorer, etc. Many people don't know about them and get confused how to access the mentioned path.
So today we are going to list some important and frequently used system-defined environment variables in this article which will help you in better understanding them.
Most of these environment variables are same for Windows XP and Windows Vista/7 but some are different. So we are listing them separately for XP and Vista/7.

Windows XP Environment Variables

Environment Variable	Path
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%	C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
%APPDATA%	C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data
%COMMONPROGRAMFILES%	C:\Program Files\Common Files
%COMMONPROGRAMFILES(x86)%	C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
%COMSPEC%	C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
%HOMEDRIVE%	C:
%HOMEPATH%	C:\Documents and Settings\{username}
%PROGRAMFILES%	C:\Program Files
%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%	C:\Program Files (x86) (only in 64-bit version)
%SystemDrive%	C:
%SystemRoot%	C:\Windows
%TEMP% and %TMP%	C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Temp
%USERPROFILE%	C:\Documents and Settings\{username}
%WINDIR%	C:\Windows

Windows Vista and 7 Environment Variables

Environment Variable	Path
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%	C:\ProgramData
%APPDATA%	C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming
%COMMONPROGRAMFILES%	C:\Program Files\Common Files
%COMMONPROGRAMFILES(x86)%	C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
%COMSPEC%	C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
%HOMEDRIVE%	C:
%HOMEPATH%	C:\Users\{username}
%LOCALAPPDATA%	C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local
%PROGRAMDATA%	C:\ProgramData
%PROGRAMFILES%	C:\Program Files
%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%	C:\Program Files (x86) (only in 64-bit version)
%PUBLIC%	C:\Users\Public
%SystemDrive%	C:
%SystemRoot%	C:\Windows
%TEMP% and %TMP%	C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Temp
%USERPROFILE%	C:\Users\{username}
%WINDIR%	C:\Windows

NOTE: Here C: is the system drive where Windows is installed in your system. It might differ for you if you installed Windows in a different drive in your system.

Posted in: win xp