How do I set the environment variable from a batch file in PowerShell?

Question

I need to set the environment variable from a batch file. In Linux, I could use this:

source key.sh

How do I do this in PowerShell? When I ran key.bat, it gave an error. I ran .\key.bat and it set the variable, but it doesn't show when I run $env:KEY.

Answer 1

If you have powershell availible just invoke .net inside powershell to set the Environment it according to your needs.

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable($Name, $Value, [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)
//[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine
//[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User
//[System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Process

See SetEnvironmentVariable documenation:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.environment.setenvironmentvariable?view=net-6.0

If you need to modify the a user environment under batch, I would change the registry.

See reg add documentaion:
https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/reg-add

reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment /v "TestTemp" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "C:\temp"

Take care that the called process is a sub process of the parent and not a separate one, cause if the process call chain breaks all process environment variables are lost.

By the way the replacement of source command in powershell is different question.

See Microsoft documentation:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_scripts?view=powershell-7.2

source key.sh

would be

. "key.ps1"

in PowerShell.