could not find a "psql" to execute

I recently installed PostgreSQL 8.2.11-1 on my Windows machine for use with
my java application. I need to get a list of the databases available so that
the user can choose one, but issuing a query of "\list" using jdbc doesn't
seem to work. Perhaps it only works on the command line? I don't know. So
instead, I wanted to try running it from the command line, using 'psql -l'.

When I try to run it from the command line (non-programmatically), this
message will appear at least once, and then execution will continue as
normal. Here's an example:

C:\>psql -l
could not find a "psql" to execute
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding
-----------+---------+-----------
postgres | john | SQL_ASCII
bob | john | UTF8
template0 | bob | SQL_ASCII
template1 | bob | SQL_ASCII
(4 rows)

C:\>

But when running this command programmatically, it does not continue after
the initial failure. I did notice that there was a user-level PATH variable.
I removed that and rebooted, but the problem still occurs. I know this is
more of a Windows problem, but it seems specific to PostgreSQL. Any ideas?