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From: shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Michael Shackelford)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: MS-DOS 3.30A and "SHELL=" in CONFIG.SYS (SLOWness)
Message-ID: <462@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 90 18:23:18 GMT
References: <1990Oct12.224956.21168@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <9849@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> <652@seer.UUCP> <1486.271c8a08@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>
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Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 32

In article <1486.271c8a08@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> browns@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems) writes:
>
>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:\...


This should be used only with caution!  There are some programs which
choke when a SUBST is in effect.  In fact, my DOS manual lists around
6 DOS commands (can't remember specifics right now and books arent here)
which are bothered by SUBST.  The same warning is given for JOIN, which
is used to make two drives look like one.

The problem with long paths is twofold:  the environment space and
command line length.  The command line is limited to 127 chars, so 
taking out the PATH_ it only leaves 122 for the actual path.

There are several utilities on SIMTEL which claim to allow massive
paths, but the ones I've tried only managed to crash the system.
(again, I don't have specifics right now) 

Dave.        shack@cs.arizona.edu