The installer for VDMSound 2.1.0 seems to corrupt my PATH environment variable if it's over a certain length.

(I'm using XP SP3, and I'm talking about the variable at system-level, not user-level, which I set by going to System Properties -> 'Advanced' tab -> 'Environment Variables' button, 'System variables' list box, ie. the one on the bottom. I don't have any setting for PATH at user-level.)

This was my path to start with:

D:\Programs\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\;d:\Prog\Ruby\Ruby-186-26\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;D:\Programs\Video\QuickTime\QTSystem;C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-Static;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn;d:\programs\cd\cdrtools;D:\Programs\System\XP Support Tools;C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\bin;D:\Prog\PHP\php-5.2.5-Win32;D:\Prog\Perl\ActivePerl\bin;D:\Prog\Python\Python26;D:\Prog\C\wxWidgets-2.8.8\lib\vc_dll;d:\Programs\Phone\Samsung\Samsung PC Studio 3;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\;D:\Programs\Version control\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\;D:\Programs\Sound\Synth\CSound\bin\5.10\bin;D:\Prog\flash\Flex SDK\bin;D:\Programs\Version control\TortoiseGit\bin;d:\prog\c\NVIDIA Corporation\Cg\bin;D:\Programs\Database\PostgreSQL\8.4\bin;D:\Prog\Python\GeoDjango\bin;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\

I ran the installer, accepting all defaults, and afterwards the path had changed to:

C:\Program Files\VDMSound

(Fortunately I managed to recover my original path from a registry backup.)

That original path up there is 1076 characters. You see the 'g' I've highlighted in red - that's the 997th character. If I set my path to all of the characters up to but not including that 'g' and then run the installer, then all is OK - the VDMSound path is simply appended on. I think it's from 997 characters and upwards that the weird things start happening - for example if I include the 'g' and run the installer, then bizarrely I get two seperate results:

- in System Properties, the path appears to have been updated correctly, with VDMSound appended.
- in a command prompt, typing 'path', the path appears unchanged (the command 'dosdrv' isn't found, confirming that VDMSound isn't on there. By the way I'm opening a new command prompt every time before checking my path this way to make sure it will have the latest environment variables.)

In this strange, contradictory situation, if I go to System Properties and try to set the path to its current value - well, as it turns out, Windows doesn't do anything unless you change the value, so I appended a '2' to the end - then the contradiction is resolved, and the command prompt shows the same value, including my original path, VDMSound, and the '2' on the end.

In the original situation with a 1076 character path, both the command prompt and System Properties are changed to the VDMSound path only as originally described.