PYTHONPATH not working on Windows XP (?)

[Sergio Correia]

Hi,

I'm trying to add a personal folder to the path used by python in
searching for packages and modules. This folder, "C:\docs\utils" , has
some packages not yet ready for "site-packages".

First, I tried sys.path.append("C:\docs\utils") BUT this only lasts
for the current python session.

Then, I read about PYTHONPATH and went to Control Panel - System -
Advanced - Enviromental Variables, and created a new variable
(PYTHONPATH) containing the folder. However, sys.path does not detects
it.. keeps printing the same old files:

>>> import sys; import pprint; pprint.pprint(sys.path)

['C:\\Program Files\\AutoHotkey',
 'C:\\Program Files\\Python25\\Lib\\idlelib',
 'C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\python25.zip',
 'C:\\Program Files\\Python25\\DLLs',
 'C:\\Program Files\\Python25\\lib',
 'C:\\Program Files\\Python25\\lib\\plat-win',
 'C:\\Program Files\\Python25\\lib\\lib-tk',
 'C:\\Program Files\\Python25',
 'C:\\Program Files\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages']

(By the way, how did that AutoHotkey folder got there? Can I remove it
from sys.path?)

After my second failure, I went to the registry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.5\PythonPath

and added my folder there. Still nothing on sys.path , and my imports fail.

Any suggestions for adding my path to sys.path permanently? I'm
running out of ideas

Thanks,
Sergio