According to the MSKB article Environment variables in Windows NTEnvironment variables in Windows NT:
User environment variables....take precedence over system environment variables.
One notable exception is the PATH
variable which is a combined result of the system and user variables:
The Path is constructed from the system path, which can be viewed in the System Environment Variables field in the System dialog box. The User path is appended to the system path.
The article also discusses identical exceptions for the expansion of the LibPath
and Os2LibPath
variables as well as how those specified in autoexec.bat
are handled. These points are likely to find little relevance in today's typical environments.
Credit to this SO answer