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 (using a friend's account ... )