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From: dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: PATH statement
Message-ID: <1991Feb15.142045.8898@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Date: 15 Feb 91 14:20:45 GMT
References: <26780@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1991Feb11.201752.17466@qualcomm.com> <1991Feb14.123101.683@IDA.ORG> <12174@helios.TAMU.EDU>
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In article <12174@helios.TAMU.EDU> jmr5125@rigel.tamu.edu writes:
>
>The way I handle it is to simply use subst to simplify the paths.  For
>instance:
>
>  subst z: c:\dos\path\utilities
>  subst x: c:\dos\path\mice
>and so forth.  Then in you set your path as follows:
>  set path=z:\;x:\;...
>All this requires is that you have DOS 3.3(?) or better, and you insert the
>line "lastdrive=z" into your config.sys (so that you can define drive letters
>above C: or D: or whatever).  Hope this helps.

Subst has been there at least since 3.1.  A slightly more flexible way to do the
same thing is just to use

  subst z: c:\
  subst x: c:\

to create fake copies of drive c:, and then use cd on those drives to set them
to the path-of-the-moment.  (Your path string would be z:.;x:., of course.)

But I've heard from several sources that subst causes trouble with certain
programs.  Can anyone give details?  I've used variations of the above strategy
for about 5 years, and the only problems I've seen are harmless ones:

  - if Z: is logged to a directory \useless, then I can't rmdir c:\useless.
  - Norton utilities refuse to operate on the subst'd drives.

Are there any more serious problems, waiting to catch me?

Duncan Murdoch