I use windows and I hate when I have to switch on another computer or when I have to do any change related to windows especially changing the environment variables. I like to download the tool, framework, ... I use as a zip and then to do minimal operations to install it. The thing I hate the most is setting environment variables, and path in that small dialog window. I have all my java applications and frameworks in one single directory so the configuration depends only on the thing I hate most: thats right, environment variables.
Now I decided to move them all in one single file, and I'm using Vbs for that. Don't hurry to blame me for that, I'm a java programmer but in this case is the best solution. If you take a look on wikipedia you'll see that "VBScript is installed by default in every desktop release of the Windows Operating System (OS) since Windows 98". That's all I need to know about VBScript to make me use it to create the script that will help me to put my java tools on every windows computer I can access, without having to add the env variables manually(muahahahahaa). Unfortunately the computer requires a restart.
Now, lets cut the chat. Here is the script(maven-env.vbs) which sets the environments required by maven2 according to the instructions and add the bin folder to the class path:
Dim WSHShell
Set WSHShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WScript.Echo "The current PATH is:" & chr(10) & chr(10) & Replace(WSHShell.Environment.item("PATH"),";", chr(10))
WScript.Echo "Current values of the variables to be changed or added:" & chr(10) _
& "M2_HOME=" & WSHShell.Environment.item("M2_HOME") & chr(10) _
& "M2=" & WSHShell.Environment.item("M2")
'maven environment variables are created according to https://maven.apache.org/download.html#Installation
WSHShell.Environment.item("M2_HOME") = "C:\java\apache-maven-2.0.9"
WSHShell.Environment.item("M2") = "%M2_HOME%\bin"
WSHShell.Environment.item("PATH") = WSHShell.Environment.item("path") & ";%M2%"
Set WSHShell = Nothing
WScript.Quit(0)
I'm using the first echo line in a separate script to display the path and to display one directory on each line replacing ; with end of line(chr(0) represents end of line). If you want to change registry values you can use:
WSHShell.RegWrite "HKCU\path\key", "value"
WSHShell.RegRead("HKCU\path\key")
If you need to know that script for more advanced operation you can check VBScript Functions