title: What is the purpose of the environmental variable PYTHONPATH
body: <p>On windows 7, I currently don't have a python path. Can I safely make one? If so, how do I do it?</p>
  
  <p>Upon making this variable, I can no longer load Spyder (IDE) without it crashing. Does anyone know why?</p>
  
  <p>I would like to edit my existing python path if possible, but just don't know why it isn't already there in environmental variables.</p>
  
  <p>I would ultimately like to be able to run "python myscript.py" and have myscript be in a different directory from the call directory.</p>