What is 'Path' in Windows 7 and how do you find it?

What is 'Path'?
Path is an environmental variable.

It is a list of directory paths where the computer looks for a command to execute although the full path to the executable is not given.

For example ,

if you type 'Notepad' at a command prompt a Notepad application opens immediately, although its location on your computer is at:
%windir%\system32\notepad.exe which is the same as C:\windows\system32\notepad.exe.

This is because C:\windows\system32\ is in the list of directories in the path.

How do you find the 'Path'?
You can simply type path at a command prompt and the computer prints to the screen the list of directories as shown:
----------------
C:\>path
PATH=C:\Program Files (x86)\iis express\PHP\v5.4;C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer;;C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\se
rver\bin;;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program File
s\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files\Microsoft
 SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Insta
ller\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Pages\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\SQL Anywhere 16\bin64;C:\Program File
s\SQL Anywhere 16\bin32;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110
\DTS\Binn\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visu
al Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\Binn\;;C:\Windows\System32\
WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\TypeScript\1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\;

You can also find it another way using the Computer Properties as shown here:
http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2010/08/compiling-java-in-windows-7.html