git-cheetah modifying path environment variable multiple times

Question

Just wanna find out if anyone has had a similar experience to this. Git seems to be modifying my path environment variable, hereafter referred to as $path, such that if after having my system running for a few days the $path is 1 huge mess!

After a clean boot $path looks something like this:

D:\WINDOWS\system32;D:\WINDOWS;D:\Apps\Development\Git\cmd;D:\Apps\Development\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools;D:\Apps\Development\phantomjs-1.9.7-windows;D:\Apps\Tools\GnuWin32\bin

When it gets to the state I mentioned it looks something like this:

D:\Apps\Development\Git\git-cheetah..\bin;D:\WINDOWS\system32;D:\WINDOWS;D:\Apps\Development\Git\cmd;D:\Apps\Development\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools;D:\Apps\Development\phantomjs-1.9.7-windows;D:\Apps\Tools\GnuWin32\bin

Except that the D:\Apps\Development\Git\git-cheetah..\bin bit is repeated, sometimes (what looks like) over 50 times!

Any insight into this would be much appreciated

Answer 1

First of all, apologies that this is more of a workaround than an answer. I am experiencing the same exact issue. Eventually my PATH gets so large that my programs can't find anything, even as simple as XCOPY.

This is happening to me on my work computer which is under domain control and I don't have admin permissions. These instructions assume no admin access, strictly user access.

In order to avoid restarting I perform the following:

Prior to performing these steps you can open command window and run set PATH to verify that you have too many cheetahs.

1. Go to the Environment Variables dialog (Right-Click "My Computer" -> Choose "Properties" -> Select the "Advanced" tab -> Click the "Environment Variables" button).
2. Select "PATH" variable under the "User variables for <username>" section.
3. Click then "Edit" button under the same section.
4. Do nothing
5. Click OK in the "Edit User Variable" dialog box.
6. Click OK in the "Environment Variables" dialog box.
7. Click OK in the "System Properties" window.

Open a NEW command window (command windows that were already open may preserve their current environment) and run 'set PATH' to verify that you're back to none or one 'cheetah's in your path.

Answer 2

I had the same annoying problem. Just download git-cheetah source, open common/winexec.c and on line 262 change from:

if (path.len) {
    setenv("PATH", path.buf, 1);
    rec->envpath = strbuf_detach(&path, NULL);
}

to:

if (path.len) {
    if (!strstr(getenv("PATH"), gitpath))
        setenv("PATH", path.buf, 1);
    rec->envpath = strbuf_detach(&path, NULL);
}

Then, recompile (cd explorer, mingw32-make) and copy the generated dll over the existing one in Program files\Git\git-cheetah. If the file is in use you can open a console window, close the Explorer process and copy using command line; then, restart explorer using the task manager (File->Execute).