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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!brl-adm!seismo!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf
From: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Desqview environment variables
Message-ID: <7@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 12-Feb-87 23:06:59 EST
Article-I.D.: b.7
Posted: Thu Feb 12 23:06:59 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Feb-87 23:17:56 EST
References: <2110@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1312@sci.UUCP> <598@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 53

In article <598@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM> del@pilchuck.UUCP (Erik Lindberg) writes:
>Ok, this is a *workaround* not a solution:
>
>Patch the version of command.com that resides in the DV directory to
>have enough environment space to support all the variables you wish to
>use. This is the command.com that DV loads, *not* the one in the root
>directory, *or* the one specified in COMSPEC (I know, I know, yuck).
[description of workaround trimmed]
>del (Erik Lindberg) 
>uw-beaver!tikal!pilchuck!del

Ok, this is a *solution*:

Since a DOS window is just like any other window, you can tell it what program
to load.  Thus tell it to load COMMAND.COM (from whereever you want to load it)
and *tell it to close on exit*.  The COMMAND.COM will inherit whatever
environment variables existed before DV got started.

I was adding some new programs, and realized that when I launch
ProComm from a DesqView window, it *finds it support files* even though they
are *not in the current (data) directory*.  I have the PROCOMM environment
variable set before calling up DV.  A little experimentation revealed that
loading COMMAND.COM, with a data file directory set (and of course close on
exit, so the EXIT command will close the window, just like a normal DOS window)
caused the process to inherit all the environment variables.  

This method will also work with programs that are normally not loaded directly,
as you can simply invoke COMMAND with the /C switch followed by whatever the
command is (in fact, one of the programs I just added to DV is a batch file,
and I used this method).  Of course, this rather severely restricts the length
of the command.

BTW:  with this method, a plain DOS window actually opens *faster* than with
DV's normal method, since DV doesn't create a batch file for COMMAND to read
to set the path and the current directory.

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| ARPA:  RALF@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU            "Teaching COBOL ought to be          |
| AT&T:  (412) 268-3053 (school)          regarded as a criminal act"         |
| Snail: Ralf Brown                           --- Edsger Dijkstra             |
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+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+
| ARPA:  RALF@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU            "Teaching COBOL ought to be          |
| AT&T:  (412) 268-3053 (school)          regarded as a criminal act"         |
| Snail: Ralf Brown                           --- Edsger Dijkstra             |
|        Computer Science Department                                          |
|        Carnegie-Mellon University      DISCLAIMER?  Who ever said I claimed |
|        Pittsburgh, PA 15213            anything?                            |
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