[net.micro.pc] COMSPEC help needed

vifl@hou2f.UUCP (M.MEKETON) (07/09/84)

The DOS 2.0 documentation for the SET command mentions that the
COMSPEC environment parameter indicates where DOS can find the
file COMMAND.COM when it has to be reloaded. (The command line
intepreter portion of COMMAND.COM resides in high memory and
a number of programs wipe this out - DOS automatically tries to
reload COMMAND.COM after these programs return control to DOS.)

My problem is this:  If I change the COMSPEC by issuing the

SET COMSPEC=B:\COMMAND.COM

command, my PC will still look on the A: disk for the COMMAND.COM
file when it needs to reload it.  This is particulary strange since
when I type SET (after I issue the above command), DOS indicates
that the COMSPEC should be B:\COMMAND.COM.

Any help on the above is appreciated.

Marc S. Meketon
hou2f!vifl

dob@ihuxj.UUCP (Daniel M. O'Brien) (07/11/84)

After setting COMSPEC to B:\COMMAND.COM, try issueing COMMAND. 
This will reinvoke COMMAND.COM, but this time it will read the
re-defined COMSPEC and will reload itself from the desired drive/
subdirectory. Of course, you will lose a little memory by having
multiple COMMAND.COMs loaded into memory. Another alternative that
I chose, is to write a program to find the COMSPEC string in memory
(buried within IBMBIO or IBMDOS) and patch it. This will
cause COMMAND.COM to be reloaded from your desired location.

If you want the program, send me some mail with your path from
ihnp4, and I will mail it. If enough interest, I will post the
source.



Have fun.

-- 
		
			Daniel M. O'Brien
			AT&T Bell Laboratories
			IH 4A-258
			Naperville, IL 60566
		
			....!ihuxj!dob
		

bregar@orstcs.UUCP (07/12/84)

How about this: with a disk that has command.com in drive b:, type
"b:command b:".  This should work, at least it did for me.

Bill Bregar