Ruby: Can I update the system environment variables?

Question

Is there a way to update a system's PATH variable through Ruby, permanently? I have the following:

envPath = ENV["PATH"].dup
if envPath.include? "C:\\oracle\\product\\11.2.0\\client_1\\bin;" then
    envPath.slice! "C:\\oracle\\product\\11.2.0\\client_1\\bin;"
    ENV["PATH"] = envPath
    puts ENV["PATH"]
end

This successfully removes the variable I want to, but only for the current window - not permanently.

Answer 1

It's more a question about general computing and process behaviour not ruby special.

No this is not possible during runtime . Only a father process can configure the environment of it's child before start. Changing the environment of the father process or other processes during runtime isn't supported by any OS.