Either ATI or NVidia (and I've not heard of nvidia doing this) setup program probably screwed up your registry.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment
Path is listed under here. It must be a Reg_Expand_SZ data type (aka Expandable String value) not Reg_SZ (String value).
Delete and recreate correctly. Type path again to see the difference.
Expandable strings tell whatever program is reading the registry that they need to expand environmental variables in what they read.
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Below was the response after typing 'set'....
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\>set
ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
APPDATA=C:\Documents and Settings\AMIKA\Application Data
CommonProgramFiles=C:\Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME=WTI1
ComSpec=C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe
FP_NO_HOST_CHECK=NO
HOMEDRIVE=C:
HOMEPATH=\Documents and Settings\AMIKA
LOGONSERVER=\\WTI1
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS=2
OS=Windows_NT
Path=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Fi
les\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA
Corporation\NVIDI
A DDS Utilities
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE=x86
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER=x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 5, GenuineIntel
PROCESSOR_LEVEL=15
PROCESSOR_REVISION=0205
ProgramFiles=C:\Program Files
PROMPT=$P$G
SESSIONNAME=Console
SystemDrive=C:
SystemRoot=C:\WINDOWS
TEMP=C:\DOCUME~1\AMIKA\LOCALS~1\Temp
TMP=C:\DOCUME~1\AMIKA\LOCALS~1\Temp
USERDOMAIN=WTI1
USERNAME=AMIKA
USERPROFILE=C:\Documents and Settings\AMIKA
windir=C:\WINDOWS
C:\>
:
Type set and what dopes it say?
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I recently rebuilt my Windows XP Pro laptop with a clean install. I
discovered today that upon trying to run some command line syntax, my laptop
is not recognizing any normal commands (ie. ping, ipconfig, nslookup, etc..)
I am receiving a message "'ipconfig' is not recognized as an internal or
external command, operable program or batch file."
Has anyone seen this before? I run cmd line often and need this to work.
Is there something that didn't install properly or do I need to execute a
file within my system32 directory to activate this area of my OS?
Please advise.
Thank you in advance,
Amika
(e-mail address removed)