OK, if defeating ignorance is a workaround, so be it.
No, that's not what a workaround is.
A workaround is what you do if the established way of doing things doesn't
work, then you find another way to do it.
For 25 years or more the established way of adding to the PATH is to put a
line in the Autoexec.bat file.
In Windows 7 that does not work, so you have to find a way to work around this
limitation. Such a way of working around a limitation is called a
"workaround". Get it?
If the workaround were the proper way of doing it, then Microsoft would TELL
THEIR USERS THAT, and not leave them to discover it by chance, trial and
error, or by rumours passed on by other people.