MATLAB was unable to launch my System web browser

Hi,

when I try to click on a help mathworks link, it doesn't open web browser and returns me the warning message:

Warning: MATLAB was unable to launch your System web browser

and...

'cmd.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command

the same if I type:

!cmd or system('cmd')

Have I to set something in environment variables ?

[Kaustubha Govind]

Do you have C:\Windows\system32 or other system paths in your PATH variable? Also, does the system setting match that returned by "getenv PATH" in MATLAB?

[Marco]

Thanks. I setted (by setenv) C:\Windows\system32 in the PATH variable and now it works

[shaik IMRAN]

what you have setted its not working

[Kouichi C. Nakamura]

This worked for me (Windows 7).

setenv('PATH', [getenv('PATH') ';C:\Windows\system32']);

[Aryan Ritwajeet Jha]

Can confirm that

setenv('PATH', [getenv('PATH') ';C:\Windows\system32']);

worked on my Windows 10 MATLAB 2021a.

[Luo Gang]

Awesome, the command setenv('PATH', [getenv('PATH') ';C:\Windows\system32']); by typing it in the matlab command window has solved my problem. Thanks

[Luo Gang]

I find the way that cannot resolve this issue permanently. After you restarting your computer and then starting yout matlab, you will meet the issue again. So in order to solve this permanently, you can firstly run the command setenv('PATH', [getenv('PATH') ';C:\Windows\system32']); and secondly run the command getenv('PATH'), you will see a path. Finally go to edit your PC's the system environment variable, 'Path', by append above partial path to the end of 'PATH' in the Tab of system environment variable.

Answer 1

[Sebastian Hölz]

I had the same problem and just found the cause: too many entries in the PATH environment variable. Win7 (and most likely older versions as well) limit this variable to 2048 characters. If the variable gets larger this will cause problems. Try the following:

 >> getenv('path')

If this returns an empty string, your path variable might be to long. To fix this you will have to manually edit the path variable. To this, open the dialog to edit environment variables:

 c:\windows\system32\systempropertiesadvanced.exe -> "Environment Variables"

Search for the "PATH" variable in the lower list (System variables), open it and make sure it has less than 2048 character.

This can be done by copying the value to an editor and

• removing redundant directories in the string,
• shorten directory path(s) by abbreviating them with variables.

After editing, copy the new path-variable to the "Edit System Variable" box. Then, after restarting Matlab, your problems are (hopefully) gone.

Cheers

Sebastian

[karl hoitsma]

Unfortunately, this happens on a mobile device -- an iPhone.

What might be the fix here ??