Is it possible to set an environment variable to the output of a command in cmd.exe

I need to do the equivalent of

set ENVAR=`some-command`

In a windows/cmd.exe script. Cygwin is not an option.

For bonus marks: Is there some cmd.exe equivalent of backticks in general?

A quick and dirty way would be redirecting it to a file and then reading this, e.g.

some-command>out.txt
set /p ENVAR=<out.txt

I think for can also help you, but I don't remember the exact syntax. Try something like

for /f "usebackq" %x in (`some-command`) do set ENVAR=%x

I probably forgot some token or delim in the options...

Not "probably", it is absolutely a must to specify "delims=" (it means "no delimiters"), unless you want your variable to only contain up to first space or tab of the input data.

It is recommended to specify "delims=" as the last option to avoid potential confusion in options perception by the operator and by the shell.

I.e.

FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %%a IN (`cygpath.exe -u "%~1"`) DO (
    SET CMDNAME=%%~a
    SHIFT
)

See SS64 article on FOR /F.