[net.micro.pc] Solution to COMSPEC/COMMAND.COM problem

tsc2597@acf4.UUCP (Sam Chin) (03/25/85)

<<<>>>

Thanks to all who responded to my query about the COMSPEC/COMMAND.COM
problem. The solution it turns out is to use the poorly documented SHELL
command within the CONFIG.SYS file. For example to cause MS-DOS to go to
drive A: each time to look for COMMAND.COM when it has been overlayed, use
the following sequence (add this line to your CONFIG.SYS)

SHELL = A:\COMMAND.COM A:\ /P

You can similiarly to this for drive C: etc. It is rather curious that many
people have tried various solutions to this. On dec-marlboro for instance,
there is a file called COMSPEC.ASM which searches memory for the actual
COMSPEC parameter used by MS-DOS and patches it to a new value.

                                             Sam Chin
                                             allegra!cmcl2!acf4!tsc2597
                                             tsc2597.acf4@nyu

hummel@csd2.UUCP (Robert Hummel) (03/26/85)

The solution given to the COMSPEC problem works fine EXCEPT for the
case in which you want your shell to come from RAMdisk (which saves a
lot of time if you frequently use programs that overlay COMMAND.COM).
In this case the SHELL command in CONFIG.SYS will fail because the
desired COMMAND.COM has not yet been copied into the RAMdisk when
CONFIG.SYS is executed. For this purpose, the public-domain COMSPEC
program is useful (and works, in my experience, under all versions of
PC or MSDOS >= 2.0). Also, if you (as I do) use the public-domain
"BOOT" pseudo-shell to create more environment space for DOS, you do
not have the option of using SHELL for COMMAND.COM.

Tony Movshon

uucp:	{seismo|allegra|ihnp4}!cmcl2!hipl!tony
arpa:	hipl!tony@nyu
usps:	dept of psychology / nyu / nyc 10003

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