title: How to get the value of the PATH environment variable without expanding tokens?
body: <p>I'm writing a PowerShell script to convert folder names to short names in the PATH environment variable and save the changes.  It works correctly for explicit paths, but it expands tokens, so when I save my changes the tokens are replaced with explicit paths.  I'd like to preserve the tokens.</p>
  
  <p>For example, if my PATH is this: <code>%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32;C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin</code></p>
  
  <p>I want this result: <code>%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32;C:\PROGRA~1\TORTOI~1\bin;C:\PROGRA~3\CHOCOL~1\bin</code></p>
  
  <p>But instead I get this: <code>C:\Windows;C:\Windows\system32;C:\PROGRA~1\TORTOI~1\bin;C:\PROGRA~3\CHOCOL~1\bin</code></p>
  
  <p>Here's the full script that illustrates the problem.</p>
  
  <pre><code># get the current path.
  # I ended up not using either of these approaches because they appear to
  # be contextual; on my system, at least, they include paths that aren't
  # seen when I view the PATH value from the System Properties -&gt; Environment
  # Variables dialog box.
  $current_path = $env:Path
  $current_path = [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path")
  
  # Instead, I get the PATH value directly from the registry, like so:
  $current_path = (Get-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment' -Name Path).Path
  
  # The problem is that PowerShell expands the tokens even when reading from the 
  # registry, so I can't detect the tokens and ignore them.  What I really want
  # is just the literal string value, with no token evaluation.
  # Here's a sample value; this is what I see in regedt32 and the system dialogs,
  # but it's not what I get from the line above.
  $current_path = '%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32;C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin'
  
  $new_path = ''
  
  # the FileSystemObject has a method to convert the path using short names for the folders.
  $fso = New-Object -ComObject Scripting.FileSystemObject
  
  # Individual paths are delimited by a semicolon.  Skip paths with tokens, 
  # and preserve trailing slashes in each path.
  $current_path.Split(';') |
      ForEach-Object { 
          if ($_.StartsWith('%'))
              { $_ }
          elseif ($_.EndsWith('\'))
              { "$($fso.GetFolder($_).ShortPath)\" }
          else
              { "$($fso.GetFolder($_).ShortPath)" } 
      } |
      ForEach-Object { $new_path += "$_;" }
  
  # remove the extra semicolon from the end the new PATH.
  $new_path = $new_path.TrimEnd(";")
  
  "Current PATH length: $($current_path.Length)"
  "New PATH length: $($new_path.Length)"
  
  $new_path
  
  # commented out so you don't accidentally update your path if you try out this script
  #[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $new_path, "Machine")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It seems like it should be easy enough if I could just get the literal string value from the registry, but I so far have not been able to figure out how to do that.</p>