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Forum Update on Monday, May 27th 2025

System Cannot Find Path Specified

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visual studiocmakec++compiler
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  • JonBJ JonB

    @surferbrain
    How do you actually run/invoke this CMD? It sounds like it's trying to run something at start-up, before it gets going? I note from running cmd /? it includes:

    /D Disable execution of AutoRun commands from registry (see below)

    so that is an example showing CMD can be running something when it starts.

    S Offline
    S Offline
    surferbrain
    wrote on last edited by
    #5

    @JonB I pressed the Win key, typed cmd, and pressed Enter:
    1ea738aa-7150-43dd-88f6-da723d01262b-image.png

    JonBJ 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • hskoglundH Offline
      hskoglundH Offline
      hskoglund
      wrote on last edited by
      #6

      Hi, the 2nd attempt was the one I was thinking of (set path= on one line, and vcvarsall.bat on the next line)

      Now in that same CMd, (after the 2 lines that ends with .. initialzed for x64) try typing
      cl

      Does it say Microsoft Visual ... or?

      S 1 Reply Last reply
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      • S surferbrain

        @JonB I pressed the Win key, typed cmd, and pressed Enter:
        1ea738aa-7150-43dd-88f6-da723d01262b-image.png

        JonBJ Offline
        JonBJ Offline
        JonB
        wrote on last edited by JonB
        #7

        @surferbrain
        If you type the command

        cmd
        

        from within your Command Prompt, it will start a new one inside the current one. Output should look like:

        Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
        Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
        
        C:\Users\Jon>cmd
        Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
        Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
        
        C:\Users\Jon>
        

        But are you saying that after that cmd inside the Command Prompt you get your
        The system cannot find ...
        message as it starts the second shell level?

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        • hskoglundH hskoglund

          Hi, the 2nd attempt was the one I was thinking of (set path= on one line, and vcvarsall.bat on the next line)

          Now in that same CMd, (after the 2 lines that ends with .. initialzed for x64) try typing
          cl

          Does it say Microsoft Visual ... or?

          S Offline
          S Offline
          surferbrain
          wrote on last edited by
          #8

          @hskoglund Hi, typing cl after shows:
          82a2a341-ba50-49aa-8191-a85544780d9c-image.png
          Maybe now I should try Qt Creator and see if it still creates those cl errors.

          @JonB Yup! Even invoking cmd within cmd produces the error:
          fe67f709-32c8-48c3-a1da-a00b36411f65-image.png

          JonBJ 1 Reply Last reply
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          • S surferbrain

            @hskoglund Hi, typing cl after shows:
            82a2a341-ba50-49aa-8191-a85544780d9c-image.png
            Maybe now I should try Qt Creator and see if it still creates those cl errors.

            @JonB Yup! Even invoking cmd within cmd produces the error:
            fe67f709-32c8-48c3-a1da-a00b36411f65-image.png

            JonBJ Offline
            JonBJ Offline
            JonB
            wrote on last edited by
            #9

            @surferbrain
            I am only commenting on the The system cannot find .... If it were me I would want to track that down and deal with it. However, whatever it is it may be harmless or not related to your Qt situation.

            Yes, try ignoring it for now and proceeding....

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            • hskoglundH Offline
              hskoglundH Offline
              hskoglund
              wrote on last edited by
              #10

              You seem to have been bitten by PATH poisoning (i.e. some other program is interfering with MSVC)

              To be able to pull the same stunt from Qt Creator you will have to launch Qt Creator from that same CMD that has the neutered path (or find a way to do it inside Qt Creator)

              1 Reply Last reply
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              • S Offline
                S Offline
                surferbrain
                wrote on last edited by surferbrain
                #11

                I'm wondering, I found some directories that did not exist in my system environment variables. I deleted or modified them to work. I am wondering now if the System Environment path variable in my stock kit looks correct. I would assume it is:
                Untitled.png

                @JonB Qt Creator still produces the same errors. It does say that perhaps:
                92dad112-e6d9-4417-a29d-7ec98bdb3976-image.png
                but we already knew the environment is probably screwed up in some fashion.

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • hskoglundH Offline
                  hskoglundH Offline
                  hskoglund
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #12

                  Hmm, the PATH looks kosher, maybe it's time to clean those Visual Studios, try keep only one of them (MSVC2019) and uninstall the others (MSVC2017 etc.) Then start MSVC2019 and update it to version 16.6.4.

                  S 1 Reply Last reply
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                  • hskoglundH hskoglund

                    Hmm, the PATH looks kosher, maybe it's time to clean those Visual Studios, try keep only one of them (MSVC2019) and uninstall the others (MSVC2017 etc.) Then start MSVC2019 and update it to version 16.6.4.

                    S Offline
                    S Offline
                    surferbrain
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #13

                    @hskoglund Thank you for your help.
                    I currently only have VS 2019 Community and Qt Creator 4.12.4 installed. They were installed after uninstalling all instances of VS and Qt.
                    I just updated to 16.6.4 and it still produces the same errors/warnings. Ex:
                    f7c7a3da-c354-4748-89e5-1acb73cb66ca-image.png

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • S Offline
                      S Offline
                      surferbrain
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #14

                      Does anyone else have any possible solutions, besides reinstalling Windows?

                      JonBJ 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • hskoglundH Offline
                        hskoglundH Offline
                        hskoglund
                        wrote on last edited by hskoglund
                        #15

                        Hi, maybe you can use Qt Creator through my suggestion before (i.e. launch a normal (not a Developer) CMD window) and type these 3 lines:

                        set path=
                        "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64
                        C:\Qt\Tools\QtCreator\bin\qtcreator.exe
                        

                        If you can compile nside Qt Creator now, you could put those 3 lines a .bat file...

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                        • S surferbrain

                          Does anyone else have any possible solutions, besides reinstalling Windows?

                          JonBJ Offline
                          JonBJ Offline
                          JonB
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #16

                          @surferbrain
                          You need to look inside that vcvarsall.bat file and see what paths it is trying to find/execute which cannot be found. Isn't the problem in your VS set up rather than Creator?

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                          • jondoe420J Offline
                            jondoe420J Offline
                            jondoe420
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #17

                            I am still having this problem in 2022. Did no one work on a fix? I thought those enterprise licenses were supposed to pay for something

                            JonBJ JKSHJ 2 Replies Last reply
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                            • jondoe420J jondoe420

                              I am still having this problem in 2022. Did no one work on a fix? I thought those enterprise licenses were supposed to pay for something

                              JonBJ Offline
                              JonBJ Offline
                              JonB
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #18

                              @jondoe420 said in System Cannot Find Path Specified:

                              I thought those enterprise licenses were supposed to pay for something

                              What "enterprise licenses"? Do you mean some kind of Qt commercial licence? If so why not ask TQtC?

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                              • jondoe420J jondoe420

                                I am still having this problem in 2022. Did no one work on a fix? I thought those enterprise licenses were supposed to pay for something

                                JKSHJ Offline
                                JKSHJ Offline
                                JKSH
                                Moderators
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #19

                                @jondoe420 said in System Cannot Find Path Specified:

                                I am still having this problem in 2022. Did no one work on a fix? I thought those enterprise licenses were supposed to pay for something

                                The Qt enterprise license can't fix your Visual Studio installation for you.

                                If you'd like assistance, please provide diagnoatic information like what @surferbrain did above.

                                Qt Doc Search for browsers: forum.qt.io/topic/35616/web-browser-extension-for-improved-doc-searches

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                                • N Offline
                                  N Offline
                                  Nahian
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #20

                                  so, can anyone give a step by step guide? I feel like it's taking different path even after specifying it. i=I used ifstream, fstream, ofstream, and QFile, but none worked. It's hard to believe that this issue is not being fixed. I am using QT creator.

                                  JonBJ 1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • N Nahian

                                    so, can anyone give a step by step guide? I feel like it's taking different path even after specifying it. i=I used ifstream, fstream, ofstream, and QFile, but none worked. It's hard to believe that this issue is not being fixed. I am using QT creator.

                                    JonBJ Offline
                                    JonBJ Offline
                                    JonB
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #21

                                    @Nahian
                                    Hello and welcome.

                                    " step by step guide" to what? This thread is a question about the MS-supplied vcvars...bat file having an error in it when run on the user's system, likely nothing to do with Qt.

                                    I used ifstream, fstream, ofstream, and QFile, but none worked.

                                    Used them for what? I don't see any connection between these calls and vcvars.bat issuing an error message.

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                                    • N Offline
                                      N Offline
                                      Nahian
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #22

                                      @JonB sorry for the late reply, my problem seems different, but the error message is similar to mine.

                                      So my problem is: I am using a basic c++ technique just create a text file, but it's always telling me that file not found or cant open. It worked when I downloaded the qt creator for the first time, but now it doesn't work. The common error message was "System Cannot Find Path Specified" I am going to upload a video about the problem and send the link here so you can see everything.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • N Offline
                                        N Offline
                                        Nahian
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #23

                                        @JonB Here's the video to my issue: [https://youtu.be/FrFimu395Mo](link url)

                                        JonBJ 1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • N Nahian

                                          @JonB Here's the video to my issue: [https://youtu.be/FrFimu395Mo](link url)

                                          JonBJ Offline
                                          JonBJ Offline
                                          JonB
                                          wrote on last edited by JonB
                                          #24

                                          @Nahian
                                          Sorry, don't have time to watch a 5 minute video. You are supposed to paste a minimal example of any code which goes wrong.

                                          If you get the message "System Cannot Find Path Specified" it means exactly what it says: the file path you handed to it, probably to open for reading (you sure you are creating a file not opening a file??), cannot be found. Either you are passing an absolute path to a file which does not exist or, most likely, you are using a relative path. And since you don't know what directory that is relative to you must not do that, and must make a suitable absolute path to the file, e.g. with the help of QStandardPaths Class. Or you might use Qt resource paths if you want to supply a file embedded in your executable.

                                          1 Reply Last reply
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