Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: update: re: pathlength, environment space
Message-ID: <24943@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 24 Aug 89 13:37:26 GMT
References: <1072@neptune.AMD.COM> <2183@infmx.UUCP>
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 34

aland@infmx.UUCP (alan denney) <2183@infmx.UUCP> :
-   SHELL=c:\dosdir\command.com c:\dosdir /p /e:640
-
-note the additional second parameter: the directory in which
-command.com resides.
-
-My findings:
-   1) I cannot find this documented *anywhere*, even though several
-      people claimed that it is "clearly documented under COMMAND".
-      I checked PC DOS 3.2, PC DOS 3.3, and variants of MS DOS 3.1,
-      3.2, and 3.3.  Nowhere could I find it -- not under CONFIG.SYS,
-      under COMMAND, anywhere.  Checked IBM, Zenith, and Tatung manuals,
-      (Zenith usually being the most thorough of the DOS manuals I see).


Ahem.  From Zenith's MS-DOS Version 3.21 User's Reference, p. 3.31:


	Syntax:

	command [drive:][path][cttydev][/e:nnnnn][/p][/c string][/d]

	Comments:

		...

        The drive:path options tell the command processor where to look
	for the COMMAND.COM file if it needs to reload the transient
	part into memory.

It doesn't really jump out at you, and it wouldn't be documented under
the config.sys section as it doesn't pertain to config.sys as such but
rather to command.com (which happens to be commonly specified in
config.sys).  But it is there.