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When I fresh boot my computer everything is dandy. Then after a few hours applications like Visual Studio, Notepad++, Games, iTunes, Windows components (Cmd prompt, Explorer, etc.), etc. stop working with errors about missing files or not being installed correctly.
I found that if I browse out to Cmd.exe and run it directly (instead of from the menu link) then I can run it, and the WinDir environment variable and others are missing (which explains why I can't run Cmd.exe from the shortcut since it uses %WinDir%\System32 for the path) and the system path is set to (NULL).
When I go to Advanced System Settings (again manually exploring to SystemPropertiesAdvanced.exe) all the environment variables are still there. I checked my memory utilization and I have 1 of 6 Gig free, with my Commit Charge peak well bellow the limit (like 30%).
The clipboard also stops working too.
Not running anything to exotic, although I do have a lot of Chrome tabs open. Running Backblaze for backup, Microsoft Security Essentials, and various other utilities. Closing things one at a time hasn't seemed to fix it.
It has been getting progressively worse (happening sooner and sooner). Would like to know what is causing it without reinstalling.
Running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit
This happens every time you boot and work for a while? – Synetech – 2011-01-24T20:33:48.977
@Synetech: Lately it has been happening every time, but not after the same interval. Haven't discovered the pattern yet, expect that it frustrates me until I reboot. – Jim McKeeth – 2011-01-24T21:50:20.653
Could it be a handle leakage? Have you checked task manager and enabled the relevant columns in the process tab to see if any of the processes are gobbling up all your handles? – Lasse V. Karlsen – 2011-01-24T22:43:58.463
I have the same issue where most of my environment variables go missing. It seems to only occur after my system wakes from sleep. I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit on a domain. – None – 2011-02-02T06:03:48.883
I started seeing the same symptoms on 64 bit Vista in December. My PC can run for a few days before this happens and I need to reboot. Kaspersky anti-virus has found no problem. Also reported here: [http://superuser.com/questions/355594/windows-7s-path-and-environment-variables-are-corrupted] – Lee – 2012-01-11T09:28:42.067