How do I get os.environ to list environment variables of my system, not a user?

Question

For context, I am trying to run code that tries to read an environment variable and spits an error:

_PySpin.SpinnakerException: Spinnaker: System instance cannot be acquired. Could not load producer. Make sure that the environment variable FLIR_GENTL64_CTI_VS140 exists, and points to the location of the file FLIR_GenTL_v140.cti [-1012]

So, after much digging, I found where the file is and went into windows system Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables, and to my surprise, there is a variable FLIR_GENTL64_CTI_VS140 and sure enough it points to the appropriate file.

In python, if I import os and run os.environ, the following is printed:

environ({'ALLUSERSPROFILE': 'C:\\ProgramData', 'APPDATA': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\AppData\\Roaming', 'COMMONPROGRAMFILES': 'C:\\Program Files\\Common Files', 'COMMONPROGRAMFILES(X86)': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Common Files', 'COMMONPROGRAMW6432': 'C:\\Program Files\\Common Files', 'COMPUTERNAME': 'KINGDEL', 'COMSPEC': 'C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\cmd.exe', 'CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV': 'PointLock_pyspin', 'CONDA_PREFIX': 'C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\PointLock_pyspin', 'CONDA_PROMPT_MODIFIER': '(PointLock_pyspin) ', 'CONDA_SHLVL': '1', 'DRIVERDATA': 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\Drivers\\DriverData', 'FC2PATH': 'C:\\Program Files\\Point Grey Research\\FlyCapture2\\bin64', 'FPS_BROWSER_APP_PROFILE_STRING': 'Internet Explorer', 'FPS_BROWSER_USER_PROFILE_STRING': 'Default', 'HOMEDRIVE': 'C:', 'HOMEPATH': '\\Users\\Kingdel', 'IDEA_INITIAL_DIRECTORY': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\Desktop', 'LOCALAPPDATA': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\AppData\\Local', 'LOGONSERVER': '\\\\KINGDEL', 'NIEXTCCOMPILERSUPP': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\National Instruments\\Shared\\ExternalCompilerSupport\\C\\', 'NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS': '4', 'ONEDRIVE': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\OneDrive', 'OS': 'Windows_NT', 'PATH': 'C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\PointLock_pyspin;C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\PointLock_pyspin\\Library\\mingw-w64\\bin;C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\PointLock_pyspin\\Library\\usr\\bin;C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\PointLock_pyspin\\Library\\bin;C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\PointLock_pyspin\\Scripts;C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\PointLock_pyspin\\bin;C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\condabin;C:\\WINDOWS\\system32;C:\\WINDOWS;C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\Wbem;C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0;C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\OpenSSH;C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IVI Foundation\\VISA\\WinNT\\Bin;C:\\Program Files\\IVI Foundation\\VISA\\Win64\\Bin;C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IVI Foundation\\VISA\\WinNT\\Bin;C:\\Program Files\\MATLAB\\R2012b\\runtime\\win64;C:\\Program Files\\MATLAB\\R2012b\\bin;C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit;C:\\Program Files\\Git\\cmd;C:\\Program Files\\Point Grey Research\\FlyCapture2\\bin64;C:\\Program Files\\Point Grey Research\\FlyCapture2\\bin64\\vs2013;C:\\Program Files\\Point Grey Research\\FlyCapture2\\bin64\\vs2015;C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps;C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\AppData\\Local\\GitHubDesktop\\bin;C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps;.', 'PATHEXT': '.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC', 'PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE': 'AMD64', 'PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER': 'Intel64 Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9, GenuineIntel', 'PROCESSOR_LEVEL': '6', 'PROCESSOR_REVISION': '3a09', 'PROGRAMDATA': 'C:\\ProgramData', 'PROGRAMFILES': 'C:\\Program Files', 'PROGRAMFILES(X86)': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)', 'PROGRAMW6432': 'C:\\Program Files', 'PROMPT': '(PointLock_pyspin) $P$G', 'PSMODULEPATH': 'C:\\Program Files\\WindowsPowerShell\\Modules;C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\Modules', 'PUBLIC': 'C:\\Users\\Public', 'PYCHARM_HOSTED': '1', 'PYTHONIOENCODING': 'UTF-8', 'PYTHONPATH': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\Documents\\GitHub\\spinnaker_python', 'PYTHONUNBUFFERED': '1', 'SESSIONNAME': 'Console', 'SYSTEMDRIVE': 'C:', 'SYSTEMROOT': 'C:\\WINDOWS', 'TEMP': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\AppData\\Local\\Temp', 'TMP': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel\\AppData\\Local\\Temp', 'USERDOMAIN': 'KINGDEL', 'USERDOMAIN_ROAMINGPROFILE': 'KINGDEL', 'USERNAME': 'Kingdel', 'USERPROFILE': 'C:\\Users\\Kingdel', 'VS100COMNTOOLS': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\\Common7\\Tools\\', 'VXIPNPPATH': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IVI Foundation\\VISA\\', 'VXIPNPPATH64': 'C:\\Program Files\\IVI Foundation\\VISA\\', 'WINDIR': 'C:\\WINDOWS'})

Anyway, the point is that it is a different set of variables than I see in windows system Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables:

Also, what os.environ prints does not seem to be the User variables for the my current user either.

Anyway, my primary question is, of course, how do I get FLIR_GENTL64_CTI_VS140 to show up as an environment variable in my python, given that it is an environment variable, at least on my system?

I suspect that the answer has something to do with python os.environ['USERNAME'] being 'Kingdel', while the environment variables listed under windows system Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables is 'SYSTEM'. This is probably because python is installed on the user Kindel instead of above any user. But, I am hoping for a solution that does not require reinstalling python. Is there a os.change_user type of command or something? Or maybe I can clone over environment variables from my system to the appropriate user somehow or something like that?

Thank you!

I tried uninstalling the SDK (and it's associated programs) that I am trying to use and to reinstall it on my user rather than directly on C drive, thinking that might automatically create the correct variables on my user, but it turns out that I cannot install the program within the user directory (maybe that is a windows thing as I am primarily a Mac user).

I tried to find a way to change user with python using os.setuid(), but the solution I found for doing that used pwd package, but this is being done on windows; so, I could not do that and did not find a work around.

Answer 1

Well, the problem is fixed. os.environ now prints out the environment variables found in windows system properties->advanced->environment variables.

I am only guessing, but I think that restarting my windows machine fixed this issue. I deleted my conda environment. I uninstalled the Spinnaker SDK and then reinstalled the Spinnaker SDK—in the same location as originally installed. Then, I made my environment again from scratch and followed the identical process for installing, except I did add to my path (in windows system properties->advanced->environment variables) the path to my environment in conda which holds python.

I honestly do not think that the uninstall/reinstall nor adding the path did anything, because again, the problem was os.environ printing different environment variables than listed in windows system properties->advanced->environment variables, which seems strange.

Nominally, I expect this to have something to do with when os.environ made its mapping to my environment variables, which according to the docs is when I import os. Obviously, I was rerunning that import every time that I ran my code, but it was not being updated. Suspecting that maybe it had to do with when I opened my IDE, I had closed and relaunched my IDE, but that did nothing. So, I think it was fixed when I rebooted. Or perhaps, the uninstalling process did not remove the Environment variables from my system such that when I reinstalled everything, including my new environment with the os package being on that environment, that is when os created its mapping and this time included the "new" environment variables that I needed. I am not entirely sure.

I guess if trying to use python spinnaker, install everything once, reboot if you run into problems, and then maybe uninstall everything and reinstall. And btw, import numpy before you import PySpin. Hope there are no more issues!

os.environ docs