Installing Drush on Win 7 so it runs in a Git Bash Window

All,

I noticed that quite a few people in the Drupal Easy Career Starter Program could not get drush to work in their git bash windows.

This is because the software was not installed with the correct option! When you install drush using the Drush 5.7 Windows Installer, the attached screen will appear.

If you notice, there are three boxes that are "X" out. The second box / line is titled "Register Environmental Variables". You should un "X" this box. When you click on this box, you will receive a drop down menu. Choose "Will be installed on local hard drive".

Then proceed with the installation.

The Register Environment Variable with update the Path so that git bash knows where to find the drush programs.

You can also fix this problem after you have installed drush. Note: I've only tested this with Drush 5.7. It may work with other version, but then again - the required path maybe different on other versions. However, the technique will be identical - you will just need to determine the drush path.

To fix this, click on Start and then right click on My Computer or Computer (same thing). Then choose Properties from the menu.

When the Windows' System Control Panel opens, click on Advance Systems Setting (top left hand corner). The System Property window will open and the Advance tab will be active.

Click on Environmental Variables, which is at the bottom of the Advanced Tab page. The Environmental Variables window will not appear.

There are two sets of Environmental Variables. DO NOT CHANGE THE SYSTEM VARIABLES. You can break a lot of stuff!!

You want to change the User variables, which appear in the top portion of the Environment Variables window.

If the environment variable PATH already exist, then edit it, add a ";" to the end of the current line, and paste the below path onto the end of the existing path string that is in the Variable value text box.

If it does not exist, then add it via the New button and simply paste the below path (without the starting ;) into the Variable Value text box:

C:\Program Files\Intel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\;C:\ProgramData\Drush\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Drush\GnuWin32\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Drush\Php

Then click OK and close all of the windows we just opened, including the git bash window if you have it open. Open a new git bash window and enter the drush command:

drush status

You should get something like:

If you receive some other message, then the above did not work. At this point, either figure out the error or simply uninstall and re-install drush using the above instructions.

Dennis