Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site noscvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!noscvax!bmarsh From: bmarsh@noscvax.UUCP (William C. Marsh) Newsgroups: net.micro.pc Subject: Re: Anyone know how to enlarge the PC-DOS default environment size? Message-ID: <266@noscvax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 13-Mar-86 11:52:57 EST Article-I.D.: noscvax.266 Posted: Thu Mar 13 11:52:57 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 20:10:36 EST References: <1007@unmvax.UUCP> <40@ur-tut.UUCP> <410@mhuxi.UUCP> Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego Lines: 51 Summary: Shell command is documented. In article <410@mhuxi.UUCP>, v1b@mhuxi.UUCP (davis) writes: > > For DOS 3.1, an undocumented feature of the SHELL command is used > in the CONFIG.SYS file: > > shell=drive/pathname_of_command_processor drive/path_to_command_process > /p/e:number_of_16_byte_paragraphs > > where: 10 > Example, giving 480 byte environment space: > > shell=c:\command.com c:\/p/e:30 > > I'd like the address to patch in DOS 3.1, since the SHELL feature is undoc- > umented, and hence unsupported. > > Max S. Robin I don't know where you were looking, but on page 4-25 of the DOS 3.1 manual (DOS manual, not the Dos Technical Reference) the shell command IS documented. This was also documented in the 2.1 manual as well. What isn't documented, is the flags to command.com which are used. The only flag documented for command.com is the 'c' option, which is documented in the section "Executing Commands From Within an Application" in the DOS Technical reference manual (Chapter 8 for 3.1). The 'p' option tells command.com to stay resident, (ignore the 'exit' command, among other things), and I believe this also tells command to read the autoexec.bat file. The 'e' option, (which is only available in 3.x), sets the default environment size as you have pointed out. The second option to the shell command (actually is just passed to command like the rest of the stuff on this line), tells where command is to re-load the transient portion from. This appears in COMSPEC too, so other applications can use this info. You should be able to put a path to a ramdisk here, then command will re-load from the ramdisk. (No guarantees, since I don't use a ramdisk). Hope this clears up some confusion. I prefer to use the 'undocumented' option in the shell command in place of patching command.com. If only Microsoft had 'developers' like Commodore does with its Amiga... -- Bill Marsh, Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA {arpa,mil}net: bmarsh@nosc uucp: {ihnp4,akgua,decvax,dcdwest,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!noscvax!bmarsh "If everything seems to be coming your way, you're probably in the wrong lane."