Problem with running different programs the Start - Run menu

Question

When I try to run Chrome via Start → Run → "chrome", I succeed.

However, I fail when I'm trying to run the Beyond Compare program via Start → Run → "bcompare", as I saw the executable is bcompare.exe.

Why is that?

Answer 1

When running programs by just their name, Windows traditionally searches all directories listed in the %PATH% environment variable.

C:\> set path
PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32;C:\Program Files\PuTTY;C:\Perl;C:\Program Files\Python
C:\>

Since many programs install to their own directories, adding everything to %PATH% would be very complicated. For this, some Windows components – including the Run... dialog – search a second location, called App Paths. For example, when you installed Chrome, it registered itself in the Registry under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\Chrome.exe. You can see it with Registry Editor (run regedit).

When you try to run bcompare, it fails because Beyond Compare has not registered itself under App Paths. If you want, you can create the key and values manually with Regedit:

• key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
  • subkey App Paths
    • subkey bcompare.exe
      • value (default) with data C:\Program Files\..........\bcompare.exe
        Replace ..... with the correct path, of course.