Adding Cygwin to the Path

Adding Cygwin to Path allows you to use Cygwin commands and utilities from anywhere on your computer, no matter what folder you are in. If you add the path to Cygwin to Path, you can run any program or utility from the Windows command line without having to specify the full path to its executable file.

This makes it easier to work with Cygwin, because you do not need to go to the directory with the installed program every time to run it. This is also convenient if you use Cygwin as a replacement for the Windows command line, because it will allow you to execute commands and use Cygwin utilities without switching between command line windows.

What is Cygwin?

This is the name of free software, which provides the user with the ability to run modified programs for Unix-like operating systems on the Windows platform.

Cygwin provides UNIX API support on Windows, and also provides many standard UNIX utilities and applications. This allows users to work on Windows with the same commands they would use on Linux or other UNIX-like operating systems.

Instructions for adding Cygwin to the Path

Adding Cygwin to the PATH environment variable allows you to use Cygwin commands on the Windows command line from anywhere in the file system.

Follow these steps to add Cygwin to the PATH environment variable:

1. Open the Windows Control Panel.
2. Click on "System" -> "Advanced System Settings".
3. In the window that appears, select the "Advanced" tab, then click on the "Environment Variables" button.
4. In the "User Environment Variables" section, find the PATH variable and click on the "Edit" button.
5. In the "Variable Value" field, add the path to the directory with Cygwin installed, using the ";" symbol to separate this path from other paths, if they already exist in this variable. If the PATH variable does not contain any other values, then just add the path to the directory with Cygwin installed. For example, C:\cygwin64\bin .
6. Click on the "OK" button in each open environment variable settings window.
7. Close all open windows and restart the Windows Command prompt.

After these actions, Cygwin commands will be available in any directory on the Windows command line.