bcdedit.exe is not recognized... Win 8.1

I am running Windows 8.1, and when I tried to use bcdedit.exe (for the first time on this install) it told me that:

'bcdedit' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file.

I found this odd because:

My PATH variable includes C:\Windows\System32
bcdedit.exe is in System32
I'm running the command from an elevated command prompt (not through some other language)

I tried a variety of other things, including using cd to go to the folder and then putting in bcdedit.exe (instead of bcdedit). No luck. Anyone know what's going on?

Mel

Posted 2014-10-24T21:30:34.347

Reputation: 51

This indicates your system image is corrupt this isn't a permission problem, can you run sfc? – Ramhound – 2014-10-24T21:33:36.060

Is this a fresh installation? What's your PATHEXT variable (echo %PATHEXT%)? Could you provide your entire PATH in case there's some syntax error in there? What does where bcdedit output? – Bob – 2014-10-24T23:33:15.370

Answers

Open an elevated command prompt.

You can use this to see if bcdedit is damaged:

sfc /VERIFYFILE=C:\windows\system32\bcdedit.exe

If the file is fine you will get an output like this:

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violoations.

If the file is damaged you can try to replace from backups using:

sfc /scannow

If for any reason that fails you could always try downloading the Windows 8.1 Enterprise trial, install it in a virtual machine, and copy the bcdedit.exe from it.

Saint Claire

Posted 2014-10-24T21:30:34.347

Reputation: 346

This could also be due to running a 64-bit OS, in which case you need to access BCDEDIT from C:\Windows\Sysnative\bcdedit

Jimmboh

Posted 2014-10-24T21:30:34.347

Reputation: 71

Agreed, this can happen if you are running Windows x64 but your cmd program is x86 (running from \Windows\SysWOW64), then bcdedit is not available. When you use "\Widnows\sysnative" in such scenario, you are referring to the x64 system folder. – yms – 2017-09-05T12:05:50.457