XP -- what did I do wrong?

[Bill Troop bill@xxxxxxxx]

OK. XP is working. I know what I did wrong. I tried to add things to
autoexec.nt and config.nt. When I tried to save the files, NOTEPAD, which I
was using to do the editing, told me I ought to save as Unicode instead of
ANSI, or I would lose some info. That sounded real dumb to me, but, even
dumber, I saved as Unicode. The system obviously gets real confused when
confronted with Unicode-encoded commands. You have to keep these files in
ANSI. Everything is OK. Here's what I did, step by step.

1. I copied over all my xy4 files from my previous system. No
re-installation. I never do that.

2. I open 'command' from the Win start menu. I then type sub.bat. That is a
little batch file that executes some subst commands I use to turn certain
directories into virtual drives.
The subst commands are immediately reflected in Windows, in the explorer
windows. Obviously, this is not something you have to do. I could not get
the subst commands to run any other way, for instance by including them in
autoexec.bat or autoexec.nt.

3. I changed 'autoexec.bat' to add my xy4 path. This is the contents of my
autoexec.bat file:


set path=%PATH%c:\prg\xy4;c:\usr\formats;c:\spring99
%SystemRoot%\subst d: c:\dee
%SystemRoot%\subst f: c:\prg
%SystemRoot%\subst g: c:\usr\\
%SystemRoot%\subst h: c:\aitch
sub.bat

"index.html" and "index~1.htm" are two names for the same file. The
file system keeps track of them "transparently".

The procedure used to generate 8.3 filenames from LFNs is described
here:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q101/6/01.asp

An "exception" noted in that article is that an 8.3 filename is not
generated when the NTFS filename contains a space and fewer than 8
characters. The explanation (which I don't understand) is that this
"may cause problems if you attempt to access the file or directory
through a network." The workaround is to rename the file in the 32-
bit environment, substituting an "illegal" character (i.e., one not
permitted in an 8.3 filename) for the space. (The illegal chars are
.."/\[]:;=and ,.) If you do that, NTFS will create a legal 8.3 name.

--
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/