CMD.EXE for Win9x

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

Recently a user was privately moaning that we are developing
Win32 utilities in U2 primarily for WinNT, and that these
sometimes don't work in Win9x.

There is a simple solution, which I really urge EVERYONE
using Win95, Win98, or WinME to activate and exploit. Free,
painless, brief, and permanent.

Many things we've developed for Win32 use NT's powerful
CMD.EXE command interpreter when (if) our program interfaces
with DOS. CMD.EXE is much MUCH better than the Win9x
command interpreter COMMAND.COM. (Remember: when we say
"NT", we mean the _family_ of NT operating systems: NT v4,
NT v5 a.k.a. Win2000, NT v5.1 a.k.a. WinXP.)

There exists a version of CMD.EXE for Windows 2000 that has
been modified to work under Win9x. It was developed by
Micro$oft and published in an SDK (developer kit). I always
used it when I had Win9x boxes (now all gone), and frankly I
had forgotten about it. It doesn't do *everything* that
CMD.EXE does under NT -- but it does most of it. If you try
something that causes CMD.EXE to hang, just Ctrl-Alt-Delete
and terminate "CMD" (or "Winoldap") in the tasklist.

There is a Link to this file at XyWWWeb (search, Ctrl-F, for
"CMD.EXE").

   **Win9x users should download this file!**

It is not a self-extracting ZIP, but rather the raw CMD.EXE
file itself, so be SURE to RIGHT-CLICK on the link, click
"Save [Link] Target As", and then SELECT a directory to put
it in. It should be located in the _same_ directory as
COMMAND.COM, usually C:\WINDOWS. After you have DLed the
file, REName it as CMD.EXE ("REN Win95Cmd.exe CMD.EXE")
-- this last step is very important!

All done. This, incidentally, is the latest (2001) version
of the interpreter.

(The direct URL is
http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/users/cwilson/cygutils/consize/Win95Cmd.exe
-- but on many machines if you call this URL
directly, the file will end up in some obscure temporary
directory, and your OpSys, in its infinite wisdom, might
even try to run it, which is not what we have in mind.
Better to download it off the XyWWWeb page.)

CMD.EXE will not interfere with _anything_ on your machine.
Your COMSPEC will continue to be COMMAND.COM, as before.
But if you go to a DOS Prompt and command:
 CMD
you will invoke an instance of the NT command processor.
Then try issuing
"CMD /?" or "DIR /?" -- look at all those nifty
switches.

Almost all U2 programs for NT will now work, at least
potentially. Typically, we restrict programs that use
CMD.EXE to only those machines genuinely running under NT.
I am seriously considering _requiring_ the use of this file
on all 9x boxes, and then modifying U2 to _remove_ that
restriction. I might publish a patch here that does just
that, so that individual users can experiment, and we don't
have to issue a revised U2 right away to effect this change.

I'd appreciate feedback. Thanks.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------