[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Desqview default directory

dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) (01/20/90)

Desqview has one very annoying "feature":  when you start up an application
from the menu, you can specify that it should start in a particular directory,
or you can say nothing, in which case it will start in the Desqview directory,
but you can't say that it should start up in the directory you're currently
working in.  I find this annoying, because I organize my files according to
their content, not according to which program is going to work on them.

However, I've just discovered an apparently undocumented feature of DV that
lets me get around this problem, so I've decided to share it.

When an application starts up without a current directory being given,  
DV goes to the Desqview directory on the disk it was run from, but 
initializes all other disks to some sort of "last used" directory:
if DV lives in D:\DV, and I change to C:\MYDIR and open a new application,
the new application will see current directories C:\MYDIR and D:\DV.
It'll be logged to D:, but I can tell DV to start it up in C:. and 
never see the Desqview directory at all.

My only question now is why it took me so long to figure this out.

Duncan Murdoch

jmerrill@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Jason Merrill) (01/20/90)

In article <1336@maytag.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) writes:
>Desqview has one very annoying "feature":  when you start up an application
>from the menu, you can specify that it should start in a particular directory,
>or you can say nothing, in which case it will start in the Desqview directory,
>but you can't say that it should start up in the directory you're currently
>working in.

How would you define "the directory you're currently working in"?  To
DESQview, that is always \DV, or wherever you called DESQview from.  If you
open a DOS window and do a CD, it will only change the directory that window
is working in, not a global pointer.