How do I give myself Administrator privileges in PowerShell?

Question

How do I give myself Administrator privileges in PowerShell?

John Emmas 181

A program I was experimenting with added this entry to env:PATH in PowerShell:-

C:\Users\JohnE\xmake

Unfortunately, uninstalling the program didn't remove the path entry. I found some PowerShell commands that would supposedly remove it:-

function changePath ($action, $addendum) { $regLocation = "Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" $path = (Get-ItemProperty -Path $regLocation -Name PATH).path # Add an item to PATH if ($action -eq "add") { $path = "$path;$addendum" Set-ItemProperty -Path $regLocation -Name PATH -Value $path } # Remove an item from PATH if ($action -eq "remove") { $path = ($path.Split(';') | Where-Object { $_ -ne "$addendum" }) -join ';' Set-ItemProperty -Path $regLocation -Name PATH -Value $path } }

followed by:-

changePath "remove" "C:\Users\JohnE\xmake"

However, running that command told me I needed Administrator privileges to access the Windows Registry. So I closed PowerShell and re-opened it as Administrator. This time it looked promising - except that env:PATH as an Administrator didn't contain that entry anyway (so nothing got changed). I guess I'll need to restart PowerShell as a normal user but somehow issue the command with Administrator privileges so is that possible somehow?

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4 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Apologies. 'changePath' is supposed to be a function definition I don't understand why all the formatting got removed. Let me try again...

function changePath ($action, $addendum) {

$regLocation =

"Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment"

$path = (Get-ItemProperty -Path $regLocation -Name PATH).path

# Add an item to PATH

if ($action -eq "add") {

$path = "$path;$addendum"

Set-ItemProperty -Path $regLocation -Name PATH -Value $path

}

# Remove an item from PATH

if ($action -eq "remove") {

$path = ($path.Split(';') | Where-Object { $_ -ne "$addendum" }) -join ';'

Set-ItemProperty -Path $regLocation -Name PATH -Value $path

}

Answer 2

DaveM121 931.8K Independent Advisor

1

The easiest method to undo that change is to open the System Restore utility and check if you have a System Restore point dated before that change was made, that will restore the registry and remove the changes made.

2

If you do not have a System Restore point, open the Registry Editor.

Paste this into the address bar an press Enter.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

In the right hand pane, double click the Path entry

Carefully look through the ValueDate on that entry dialog, if you find 'C:\Users\JohnE\xmake' in the data, carefully remove it and the semi-colon before it and click OK.

Then, Restart your PC to apply the change.

3

If you were unable to find that in the registry Entry, click your Start Button and just type variables.

On the resulting list, open the 'Edit Environment Variables' app.

IN the resulting utility, in the bottom pane, double click the Path variable.

Are you able to find and delete 'C:\Users\JohnE\xmake' in that variable.

If so, delete it and restart your PC to apply the change.

John Emmas 181 Reputation points

2026-07-10T15:07:33.2266667+00:00

Thanks @DaveM121 this is a bit strange. Neither the Registry path nor the Environment Variables path contains the xmake path that I want to remove. Also, I only have 1 x restore point here but when I ask it to show me any affected changes it seems to suggest that nothing will get changed if I apply the restore point :-(

The closest thing is my Registry path which looks like this:-

C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-Static;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Windows Performance Toolkit;C:\strawberry\c\bin;C:\strawberry\perl\site\bin;C:\strawberry\perl\bin;C:\Program Files\gtkmm\bin;F:+GTK-SOURCES\gnu-windows\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer\Git\usr\bin;C:\M4\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit;G:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\vcpkg;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin;

Those entries are identical to the first part of env:PATH except that env:PATH also has a small number of extra entries at the end, looking like this:-

C:\Users\JohnE\Python\Scripts;C:\Users\JohnE\Python;C:\Users\JohnE\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Launcher;C:\Users\JohnE\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\JohnE.dotnet\tools;C:\Users\JohnE\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\JohnE\xmake

So I guess I need to figure out where those extra entries are getting stored. The Registry path doesn't contain any entries beginning with C:\Users and nor does the Environment Variables path?!?
DaveM121 931.8K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-07-10T15:13:03.9066667+00:00

Thanks for that information John.

1

When you opened System Restore is the date of the System Restore point dated before you made the changes in PowerShell.

2

Open PowerShell, please provide a screenshot of the PowerShell window.

3

Then right click the PowerShell icon on your Start Menu and choose 'Open as Administrator'.

Please provide a screenshot of that window or any error indicated.
John Emmas 181 Reputation points

2026-07-10T15:46:49.7566667+00:00

Hi @DaveM121 There are no errors reported here and yes, the Restore point is from 2 days ago whereas this change only happened a few hours ago.

I'll attach those 2 screenshots. You can see that the one opened as myself contains C:\Users\JohnE\xmake at the end and when I open it as Administrator, that folder path doesn't show.

One more thing occurred to me... the entries that get added (at the end of the path contained in my Registry) all begin with C:\Users so I'm wondering if there's some other location that takes the standard registry entries and then adds some extra ones which are specific to the current user?
John Emmas 181 Reputation points

2026-07-10T15:48:14.9533333+00:00

I don't know what's going on but the site won't let me add 2 x images to one comment, so here's the 2nd one
DaveM121 931.8K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-07-10T15:59:10.59+00:00

Thank you for the screenshots.

Unless I am missing something, in your screenshots, when you open PowerShell normally, I see C:\Users\JohnE at the prompt, I do not see C:\Users\JohnE\xmake at the prompt.

And when you open PowerShell as Administrator the prompt is C:\Windows\System32 which is also correct to tun PowerShell as administrator.

Answer 3

MotoX80 37,861

Why don't you just use Settings to manually review and update the environment variables? You will need to check both the user and system variables.

User's image

John Emmas 181 Reputation points

2026-07-10T15:56:22.21+00:00

Thanks @MotoX80

Interestingly, my user variables are identical to the extra ones that get added at the end of env:PATH - except they still don't contain C:\Users\JohnE\xmake

Answer 4

John Emmas 181

Oh gosh I'm so sorry guys. Given that no path contains C:\Users\JohnE\xmake I figured I'd just try rebooting and that fixed the problem!!!

DaveM121 931.8K Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-07-10T16:06:49.21+00:00

That is great news, I am glad the problem is resolved, great troubleshooting!