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Windows 10 brought new PATH environment variable editor, but for some reason, it just stopped working for me.
The odd thing is that path editor is "broken" only for system variables.. in case of User variables, the editor is fine.
System editor:
User Path editor:
As you can see, both are editing Path variable, however both use different editor. This is quite infuriating, have you ever encountered such error?
I was having the exact same issue, and finally figured this out via trial-and-error. The issue is that there is a bug in the Windows 10 Path environment variable parser. In my case, the first entry in my Path environment variable started with an application-defined REG_SZ environment variable (e.g., Path was set to %MyAppPath%\some\subdir;...). From my testing, it appears that the first entry on the Path must not start with a non-built-in environment variable.
For example, if my Path environment variable were set to %SystemRoot%;%MyAppPath%\some\subdir;..., it would be editable in the Path list view editor, since SystemRoot is a built-in environment variable. If you swap the first two paths in that example, I observed the symptom you describe (that editing the Path variable results in opening the standard text editing dialog instead of the Path list editor).
To fix this issue, ensure the first entry in your Path doesn't start with a non-built-in environment variable.
;%CDSROOT%. Then, the old, much less usable dialog pops up. When I remove the semicolon (and quotes), it gets fixed again. Sorry that I couldn't be more help, but hopefully it was either fixed by some patch applied to your computer, or you were able to get help directly from MS.
%SystemRoot%\System32(the third entry) to the front of your path, and this issue will be resolved. Note that in your first screenshot, the background dialog displays the path as%M2_HOME%..., whereas the second displays the path asC:\Users\.... That indicates thatUSERPROFILEis a built-in Windows environment variable, butM2_HOMEis not (This can be verified by observing USERPROFILE isn't listed in HKCU\Environment). See my answer for more details.