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From: browns@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: MS-DOS 3.30A and "SHELL=" in CONFIG.SYS (SLOWness)
Message-ID: <1486.271c8a08@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>
Date: 17 Oct 90 21:42:48 GMT
References: <1990Oct12.224956.21168@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <9849@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> <652@seer.UUCP>
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Lines: 43

In article <652@seer.UUCP>, ariel@seer.UUCP (Catherine Hampton) writes:
> In article <9849@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> pilger@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu 
> (Eric Pilger) writes:
>>>Does anyone else think that 160 bytes of environment space is ludicrous?
>>>My path can be longer than that.
>>>
>>It's as ludicrous as 16 characters of type ahead.  I usually can't
>>even get the next command typed waiting for the current one to finish.

You can shorten your path dramatically.  Suppose you want to point to
(among others)
    C:\UTILITY\NORTON
    C:\UTILITY\DBASE4
    C:\UTILITY\LOTUS123
    C:\WORD

Use the SUBST command, like this:
    SUBST X: C:\UTILITY
    SUBST W: C:\WORD

Then you can abbreviate your path like this:
    PATH ...;X:\NORTON;X:\DBASE4;X:\LOTUS123;W:\...

Or use a separate SUBST, with a separate letter, for each directory:
    SUBST X: C:\UTILITY\NORTON
    SUBST Y: C:\UTILITY\DBASE4
    SUBST Z: C:\UTILITY\LOTUS123
    SUBST W: C:\WORD
and then just the letters (with backslashes) in your path:
    PATH ...;X:\;Y:\;Z:\;W:\...

You can put the SUBST commands in your AUTOEXEC.BAT.  You need to change
your CONFIG.SYS by inserting this statement anywhere:
    LASTDRIVE=Z

The SUBST command is in your DOS manual.  The drive lettery you create
can be used in COPY, DIR, and all the other DOS commands, so this has
uses beyond just shortening your path.
    

The above opinions are not attributable to any other person or company.
                                     email: browns@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.   +1 216 371 0043