WinEnvEdit meop

environment opensource utility windows winui

Use this command to install WinEnvEdit:

winget install --id=meop.WinEnvEdit -e

Modern Windows 11 environment editor built with WinUI 3 and .NET 10

WinEnvEdit

Modern Windows 11 environment editor built with WinUI 3 and .NET 10.

Installation

winget install meop.WinEnvEdit

winget upgrade meop.WinEnvEdit

Features

Dual-Pane Interface: Side-by-side management of System and User variables.
Incremental Refresh: Blazing fast UI updates that only refresh changed items using $O(N)$ reconciliation.
Path List Management: Expand semicolon-separated variables (like PATH) into a list with drag-and-drop reordering.
Validation: Real-time checking for path existence and variable name validity.
Async Registry Operations: Safe, non-blocking saves with UAC elevation support.
Full History: Unlimited Undo/Redo until changes are saved or refreshed.
Modern UI: Fully responsive design with Mica backdrop and Windows 11 design language.

Inspiration

WinEnvEdit was heavily inspired by Rapid Environment Editor, a powerful tool that was widely used until its development slowed around 2018. While RapidEE is still functional, it is a legacy application that struggles with modern high-DPI display scaling and lacks a native Windows 11 aesthetic.

Crucially, Rapid Environment Editor chose a design that requires restarting the entire application as an Administrator to edit system variables. WinEnvEdit improves on this by triggering a standard Windows UAC prompt only during the Save operation. Our design also prioritizes a cleaner, more focused UI over the dense menu systems of legacy editors.

Why WinUI 3?

Several frameworks were considered to achieve the best balance of performance and native integration:

WinUI 3 (Chosen): Provides the most authentic Windows 11 look and feel, including Mica backdrops and consistent Light/Dark themes. While the API surface is more modern and "cut-down" compared to WPF, it is the standard for native Windows development.
WebView / Blazor Hybrid: While frameworks like WebView (used by MS Teams) or Blazor Hybrid offer great flexibility, they lack the low-level system integration and lightweight footprint of a native WinUI app.
Avalonia: A modern cross-platform alternative to WPF, but its custom rendering engine made it difficult to achieve a perfectly "native" Windows theme without significant effort. Additionally, implementing efficient scrolling through varied types of list view elements was more complex than in WinUI.
MAUI: Primarily mobile-focused, with desktop features often feeling like secondary additions.
Uno Platform: Powerful for multi-platform apps, but considered overkill for a dedicated Windows utility.
Tauri: Offers a fancy UI but relies on Node.js/NPM which, while functional on ARM64, has a larger dependency footprint than pure .NET.
WPF / WinForms / Electron: Considered legacy or overly resource-heavy for a modern system utility.

Development

Prerequisites

Microsoft Windows 11
Microsoft Windows App SDK 1.8
Microsoft .NET SDK 10.0

Build & Run

`` is ARM64 or x64 — run ./src/Scripts/Platform.ps1 to detect.

./src/Scripts/Prebuild.ps1
dotnet build WinEnvEdit.slnx -c Debug -p:Platform=
src/WinEnvEdit/bin//Debug/net10.0-windows10.0.26100.0/WinEnvEdit.exe

Testing

dotnet test WinEnvEdit.slnx -p:Platform=

Releasing

Bump the VERSION file, run ./src/Scripts/Prebuild.ps1, commit and push to main. GitHub Actions handles the rest.

Pipeline (.github/workflows/pipeline.yaml):

Job	Runs on	Condition
version	all pushes/PRs	Detects if `VERSION` has a new tag
validate	all pushes/PRs	Checks formatting, version sync, builds, tests
publish	main only	Builds x64 and ARM64 MSI installers
release	main only	Creates GitHub Release with installers and LICENSE
package	main only	Submits WinGet update PR via wingetcreate

Implementation Patterns

High-performance WinUI 3 patterns used in this project are documented in PATTERNS.md.

Usage

For detailed instructions on all features and keyboard shortcuts, see USAGE.md.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see LICENSE.txt.

Acknowledgments

This project was developed with help from multiple Large Language Models:

Anthropic Claude: Architecture, code generation, and documentation.
Google Gemini: Refactoring, test optimization, and troubleshooting.
Z.ai GLM: Feature implementation and specialized code assistance.
Alibaba Qwen: Minor edits and refinements.