Re: loading speller

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxx on Tue, 5 Nov 2002
06:40:00 -0800


> Bruce, put this in your autoexec.bat, on its own line:

> SET PATH=C:\XY4

No, that *replaces* the existing PATH, much of which is NOT (usually) set by
AUTOEXEC.BAT, but rather by the Registry -- the consequence will be that you're
going to have a tough time finding important files, like your command processor
(COMMAND.COM|CMD.EXE). What you want is to *add* C:\XY4 (or whatever) to the
existing PATH, for the current DOS session *only*:

PATH %PATH%;C:\XY4;

Then check the result: after AUTOEXEC has executed, shell to DOS and command:

ECHO %PATH%

That should report C:\XY4 tacked on to the end of the PATH spec. If the PATH
spec is too long (128 chars under COMMAND.COM, more under CMD.EXE), the tail
end of the PATH statement will be truncated -- you might see something like
"C:\WINNT\system32;C:\WINNT;C:\WINNT\System32\Wbem;C:\PROGRA~1\THINKPAD\UTILIT~1;
C:\PROGRA~1\ObjREXX;C:\PROGRA~1\ObjR" -- the last reported spec breaks off in
the middle, at the 128th char (my example isn't actually 128 chars long, but
you get the idea). Not much you can do about the truncated spec (hopefully not
too important); but in that case, you want to toggle \XY4 to the *beginning* of
the PATH, thus:

PATH C:\XY4;%PATH%;

Or you could replace the existing path with specs important to you *for this
session*, e.g.

PATH
C:\WINNT\system32;C:\WINNT;C:\WINNT\System32\Wbem;C:\PROGRA~1\ObjREXX;C:\XY4;

Now if, OTOH, you find a long "SET PATH=" in AUTOEXEC.BAT, then it's possible
that your PATH actually *is* established entirely in AUTOEXEC -- in which case
just add ";C:\XY4;" to the end. This sort of SET PATH= in AUTOEXEC strikes me
as very unlikely -- probably something that user inserted in AUTOEXEC
previously, or possibly the installation routine of some half-baked third-party
program created it. *Not* the proper way to go about it, though...

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