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While installing MinGW, the users are warned about making changes to the System PATH variable:

You should not alter the system path variable in any manner, or you will cause all sorts of problems for you and your computer!

In my experience, these folks tend to know a lot about Windows, so I'm inclined to take this seriously. However, no reasoning is provided.

In the past I would usually change the System PATH variable such that my usual environment would be available for my Admin account as well as my user account, and haven't experienced any trouble. Should I change this practice?

Could anyone provide some example situations where adding to the System PATH will cause problems for the system?

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    Its not actually dangerous.
    – Ramhound
    Mar 11, 2014 at 16:19
  • Welllll...as long as by alter you mean add. You can certainly break things if you start removing bits.
    – EBGreen
    Mar 11, 2014 at 16:39
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    The risk is that you can alter (and negatively impact) the system as a whole by modifying System variables, rather than impacting only the user by altering User variables. That being said, I'd see this warning as rather cryptic and over the top. The statement you will cause all sorts of problems for you and your computer! without giving you specific information smacks to me of someone who really doesn't know very much about Windows. If they're knowledgeable they ought to be able to give you specifics.
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 11, 2014 at 16:49

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