[h-e-w] emacs - set path for grep - HOWTO?

[Erwin Panen]

Hi everyone,

How do I set the correct variable(s) for my xemacs on a stick (using win
XP) so that it will find grep and other utils?
Here's how my dir struct looks:

usb-drive/home/emacs-23.1/
               |-----/gnuwin32/bin/
                                           |---grep.exe
                                           |---egrep.exe
                                           |---

This is what I've been trying to use in my .emacs file:
(fyi: %pdrive% is a variable proper to me using Pstart (menu on usb drive)
------------------------------------------------------
;; 26-09-09 setting for grep functionality under XP
;;(setq exec-path (append exec-path (list "~/gnuwin32/bin/grep.exe")))
;;(when (string-equal system-type "windows-nt")
;;  (progn
   ;; am not using cygwin
;;    (setenv "PATH"
;;    (concat
;;     "~/gnuwin32/bin" ":"
;;     )
;;    )
;;  (setq exec-path
;;      '(
;;    "%pdrive%/gnuwin32/bin"
;;    )
;;    )
;; ))
;;(add-to-list 'load-path "~/gnuwin32/bin")
;; (setenv "~/gnuwin32/bin")

; append
; (setq exec-path (append exec-path (list(expand-file-name
"%pdrive%/home/gnuwin32/bin"))))
; prepend
(setq exec-path (cons (expand-file-name "~/gnuwin32/bin") exec-path))
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alas, nothing seems to help emacs to find grep
Neither M-! ->Shell command:
nor M-x grep work and give:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'grep' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Thanks for your tips and suggestions,

Erwin