For some time now I've had a weird problem...

When I try to use cygwin or the command prompt,
I get a message saying:

"Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file.
You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the
item." (refering either to cygwin.bat, or cmd.exe)

which is peculiar, 'cos I'm the administrator, and those files are
definitely there, they are haven't been moved or deleted or sth...

If I copy cmd.exe somewhere else, e.g. to the desktop, it works,
but it c:\WINDOWS\System32 it doesn't...

Can anyone help?

Maybe your PATH directive is invalid ?

How do I check that?

Left-click My computer -> Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables -> Double-click path. Should be something like %SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32\WBEM;E:\PROGRA~1\Borland\Delphi6\Bin;E:\PROGRA~1\Borland\Delphi6\Projects\Bpl;E:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel

I checked the Path variable (in System variables) and it did include
%SystemRoot%\system32, so normally cmd.exe should work,
shouldn't it?

The best way to check the current system variables in use is to open a cmd.exe (if you can ), and type "set".
It outputs a lot of information about your system, including PATH.

You should have, among the others, those variables:


IIRC I once had a "à" character in a folder I needed to have in PATH: somehow it prevented the whole directive PATH from working (had no cmd.exe ): I removed that character and all went back to normal.

You can use this and post the result here (if you want and it doesn't contain sensitive data or info that you don't want to share)

Everything u mentioned is ok, I mean
SystemDrive, SystemRoot, Path and all...

Btw, Cygwin.bat works if run through the copy of
cmd.exe that I have on my desktop...