Originally posted by stecal
Without getting into all the high tech MCSE knowledge that is running around in my head, you do not need to do anything with the registry in this case. And for that matter, there is little you need to do with the registry on a routine basis. Adding an environment variable, either as a system variable or as a user variable, DOES NOT require any editing of the registry. You can see this for yourself. Add an environment variable named something odd or unique ("mytestenv") and set it to whatever. Close the system properties. THEN go look in the registry. Search for the variable. Did you have to set it? No. It is done by PFM (a form of Windows magic). Use regedit instead of rededt32 (the find key searches across the hives at the same time). If you don't want to wait on the search, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Environment.
Do you have to reboot?