how can I make window sdk's setenv.cmd work globally, instead of a single cmd window?

Question

Greetings, I feel kinda stupid for asking this, but I want to set the windows sdk build environment so that any process (including some non MS developer tools) can access the correct setup, without me trying to inject setenv.cmd /x86 into every process's startup.

I can't seem to find the right search terms for this, and I don't want to hand pick various exes and dirs to include them in the path.

Is there a way to make setenv.cmd effect the whole windows environment? (xp)

Best Regards Seref

Answer 1

It isn't impossible, you could use Control Panel + System and add the environment variables set by the .cmd file. Doing so has several troublesome consequences though:

• the build tools will only work on your machine, you'll have a hard time getting a build going on your colleagues' machine or a build server. Especially since you no longer try to keep it compatible.
• you'll have a very hard time switching between a debug and release build or a x86 and a x64 build
• you'll have a very hard time when you start using a new release of the SDK, especially when you temporarily need to switch back and forth between the old and the new release.

I'm pretty sure you'll deeply regret doing this, eventually.