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I'm trying to find out where programs are installed, but Windows can't find where!

Trace:

C:\Documents and Settings\apenneba>where java
'where' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\Documents and Settings\apenneba>echo %path%
c:\Python27;C:\Python33\;C:\Program Files\Git\bin;C:\Program Files\Haskell\bin;C:\Program Files\Haskell Platform\2012.4.0.0\lib\extralibs\bin;C:\Program Files\Haskell Platform\2012.4.0.0\bin;C:\Ruby193\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\Intel\DMIX;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\Program Files\OpenSSH\bin;C:\Program Files\Haskell Platform\2012.4.0.0\mingw\bin;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_11\bin;C:\strawberry\c\bin;C:\strawberry\perl\site\bin;C:\strawberry\perl\bin;C:\Program Files\Mozart\bin;C:\Program Files\nodejs\;C:\vagrant\vagrant\bin;C:\Program Files\GNU\Emacs\bin;C:\Documents and Settings\apenneba\Application Data\cabal\bin;C:\Program Files\GNU\Make\bin;C:\Chocolatey\bin;c:\Documents and Settings\apenneba\Desktop\src\specs;C:\jscoverage;C:\Program Files\Redis;C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6\bin;C:\Program Files\Caphyon\Advanced Installer 10.0\bin\x86;C:\Leiningen;C:\Program Files\GNU\nano\bin;C:\Documents and Settings\apenneba\Desktop\src\leiningen\bin;C:\Program Files\erl5.10.1\bin;C:\Program Files\bozho\Console2\;C:\Documents and Settings\apenneba\Application Data\npm

System:

$ specs os
Specs:

specs 0.4
https://github.com/mcandre/specs#readme

systeminfo | findstr /B /C:"OS Name" /C:"OS Version"
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Version:                5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
Karan
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mcandre
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2 Answers2

2

There's a really simple reason why Windows can't locate where.exe! That's because this program was initially part of the Windows 2000 Resource Kit (a separate download), and only became part of the default OS distribution with Windows Server 2003 onwards. You're probably so used to seeing and using it on newer Windows versions that you forgot it wasn't even included with XP! :)

If it was part of the OS of course you could have simply extracted it from the installation media, but in this case if you want a copy just see this answer.

Community
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Karan
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0

If your where command won't work, and System32 is actually in the PATH variable, where.exe was probably stolen by the exe gnomes, or otherwise gone missing. Could have been a botched update, or something else (who really knows, right?). Best course of action is to copy it from another machine of same OS and architecture (Win 7 x86 SP1, etc), that usually does it and keeps one from having to rebuild their entire machine.

MDMoore313
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