The current shell does not substitute ‘%path%’ with the value of ‘path’.
For example:
If the variable ‘path’ is ‘path=z:\’, then we want to set it to ‘path=z:\;c:\tools’. So we enter ‘set path=%path%;c:\tools’ at prompt, but the result ‘path=%path%;c:\tools’ is not the expected. Whereas the same line embed in batch file can be handled properly.

Small yet useful fix.