Add firewall rule with custom environment variable in program path

Question

Hi,
We want to create a firewall rule for a program which is placed in folder which changes sometimes. I know you can add a firewall with the ProgramFiles environment variable like this:
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Test Firewall rule" dir=in program="%%ProgramFiles%%\Test\Test.exe" action=allow security=notrequired
The environment variable ProgramFiles isn't expanded and if the Program Files folder is different on a system the rule still works.
We try to use this with a custom environment variable which we set a system environment variable with this command:
SETX SomeFolder "D:\Some Folder\Apr 2015" /M
If we use the command below to add the firewall rule in a batch file the environment variable SomeFolder is expanded correctly and the program path is added as a static path.
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Some Firewall Rule" dir=in program="%SomeFolder%\AFile.exe" action=allow security=notrequired
Because the folder changes sometimes we want to change the environment variable SomeFolder and not remove the old firewall rule and create a new one. We want to add the environment variable SomeFolder to the program path as a (dynamic) environment variable
and not as the expanded path at the moment when the rule is added. If we use this command:
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Some Firewall Rule" dir=in program="%%SomeFolder%%\AFile.exe" action=allow security=notrequired
We get the error:
          Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
          An error occurred while adding the rule.
          Error: The parameter is incorrect
          Status: The application name could not be resolved
          OK   
Why can't we use %%SOMEFOLDER%% like we can use %%PROGRAMFILES%%? The same error is shown when we try to add the firewall rule through the management console 'Windows Firewall with Advanced Security'
W. Spu

Answer 1

Hi,
Based on my plenty of test with this problem, it seems like there is no better method to achieve your requirement. To add new policy to firewall, it would be better using general cmdlet. The path parameter like %%SomeFolder%% do have problem in add firewall
policy cmdlet. 
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