Visual Studio environment variables script - visual-studio

Question

I would like testing and feedback (I'm hoping this is the correct place for this mods please move/delete as appropriate)
As anyone who alters environment variables frequently knows Visual studio doesn't pick them up automatically.
I found exiting and restarting all instances of explorer.exe gets Visual Studio picking up the latest set of environment variables without a restart.
Unfortunately this means you lose all your open windows.
I have written an AutoHotKey (www.AutoHotKey.com) script to get around this.
; Array must be initialised
Full_Path := Object()
; First Array dimension must be setup
Full_Path[j] := A_LoopField
; Generate a list of HWND's for explorer windows
WinGet, id, list, ahk_class CabinetWClass
; iterate over all HWND's filling in our Full_Path array
Loop, %id%
{
; store hwnd in this_id for current loop
this_id := id%A_Index%
; Get the window information for this_id
WinGetText, pathToStore, ahk_id %this_id%
; strips the address out of the text storing in ActiveAddress
StringSplit, ActiveAddress, pathToStore, `n
; Turn's Path Into Variable
pathToStore = %ActiveAddress1%
; Remove's The Beginning "Address:" Phrase
pathToStore := RegExReplace(pathToStore, "^Address: ", "")
; Remove's Carriage Returns Incase it Exist in pathToStore
StringReplace, pathToStore, pathToStore, `r, , all
; Store the result in the Full_Path array
ifExist, %pathToStore%
Full_Path%A_Index% := pathToStore
}
; We can now kill all instances of explorer.exe at command prompt
Loop, %id%
{
; Store hwnd in id array
this_id := id%A_Index%
; get process id to kill from stored hwnd
WinGet, pidVal, PID, ahk_id %this_id%
; kill the explorer process
Run, taskkill /f /pid %pidVal%
}
; kill explorer shell
RunWait, taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
; restart explorer shell
Run, explorer
; open all windows we had open previously
Loop, %id%
{
; store actual path to open in local variable path To Open
pathToOpen := Full_Path%A_Index%
; Run explorer providing the correct path to open
Run, explorer %pathToOpen%
}
Return
Any advice or improvements you can make would be greatly appreciated.
Hopefully it will be of use to someone else.

Answer 1

Another approach:
; Get fullpath of all opened explorer windows:
If WinExist("ahk_class CabinetWClass") ; explorer
{
list := ""
; https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=28751#p28751
for window in ComObjCreate("Shell.Application").Windows
{
explorer_path := ""
try explorer_path := window.Document.Folder.Self.Path
list .= explorer_path ? explorer_path "`n" : ""
}
list := trim(list, "`n")
; MsgBox, "%list%"
}
; We can now restart the Explorer.exe Process:
RunWait, %comspec% /c taskkill /f /im explorer.exe ,,hide
Process, WaitClose, explorer.exe
Run, explorer.exe
; open all explorer windows we had open previously:
If (list != "")
{
Process, wait, explorer.exe
Loop, parse, list, `n
Run %A_LoopField%
}