I am trying to run PADS from Mentor Graphics and OrCAD on the same computer. I am having a problem with changes to the PATH system environment variable that results in conflicting DLLs. Specifically, both programs will crash if the other's PATH changes are present, and neither program will run if their own PATH changes are not present. There is no order that will allow both programs to function. For reasons we can not discuss here, I can not contact the manufacturers for support in this case, nor would they be likely to care even if I could.

Since I am a Linux expert and know very little about the Microsoft environment, I was hoping someone could assist me in creating a solution for this problem.

I need to run both applications at the same time. Aside from using 2 virtual machines, is there a solution that a user can implement without application assistance to overcome this problem? I understand there is some capability for application specific paths by modifying the registry directly, but does this require support from the underlying application, or does the OS enforce this? Does anyone have an example of how to do this, or can you suggest a better alternative?

Apologize if this question is asked often. Did a quick search but did not find anything relevant.

Any assistance is appreciated.

Try leaving the system path variable untouched and create two batch files that will modify the path variable before starting the application. AFAIK the started process should inherit the modified environment variable. Should work very similar to Linux.

set path=d:\tmp;%PATH%;
c:\path\to\application\app.exe

welo

Maybe try modifying the profile to start in a private directory with it's own DLL (assume the same name?). Are there program parameters to force loading you can set in the target? Just some thoughts.

Any assistance is appreciated

Any outcome yet?