Hi, Bob.

BL>  BL> There's a reason not to do that... it always checks the root.
BL>  BL> If everything is in the root, it checks *everything* every time
BL>  BL> you give it a command.

BL>  FM> Are you *sure* it always checks the root? (BTW, the correct
BL>  FM> answer is that it doesn't.) If you don't have the root in your
BL>  FM> path create say TEST.BAT in the root, go to another dir and
BL>  FM> type TEST. "Bad command or file name".

BL>   Roy pointed out my error. It's a bit of a worry, actually. But in
BL> any case I always put C:\ on the PATH and minimise what I put in
BL> there.

In that case why do you put C:\ on the path? If there's nothing there to
find it'll needlessly search that every time. The only COM, BAT or EXE
in my root is AUTOEXEC.BAT, and I never want to run that again after
boot up.

BL>  FM> I have absolutely nothing in my root that I can avoid - not
BL>  FM> even COMMAND.COM. IBMBIO.COM, IBMDOS.COM, AUTOEXEC.BAT,
BL>  FM> CONFIG.SYS, 2 files that 2 of my Norton utilities insist on
BL>  FM> putting there, and a zero-length file which identifies the
BL>  FM> drive (eg SYSTEM.04C on this one).

BL>   Where do you put them? I keep what gets loaded at boot and the

COMMAND.COM is in C:\DOS, everything else (that we're talking about) is
in C:\UTILITY which is on the path.

BL> drivers, plus a few BAT files and the crap that bloody programs
BL> likje Norton keep putting there. The DOS directory has 119 files

Yes, TREEINFO.NCD and SD.INI are in the root 'cos Norton insists.

BL> versus 30 files for the root (plus the directories). I suppose I could
BL> create a special boot directory, but why? Isn't that what the root is
BL> for? I thought it was just a question fo keeping the number of files
BL> down.

Probably not a real reason now if it ever was, with the root being able
to hold 512. I just like to be organised, everything's in either a
directory specific to the app (eg C:\WINWORD) or one specific to a
project. C:\DEV\BLAKJACK might contain some .PAS files, some
spreadsheets and some Word docs. Generally useful stuff in C:\UTILITY.
Nothing that Windows uses is on the path, 'cos you tell it the right
directory in the Progman icon.

One more reason - some early viruses tried to kill COMMAND.COM in the
root directory, weren't smart enough to look at COMSPEC.

Regards, fIM.

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