🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec15.004138.9571@ac.dal.ca> glad@ac.dal.ca writes:
>> Anyone able to tell me how to mess with the messydos lastdrive parameter
>> which can be set in config.sys ? I want to overcome a very boring
>> "feature" of silverplatter "multiplatter" which absolutely insists that
>> the lastdrive be set to J - this makes network login a pain and the
>> cdserver is on the network. I can survive with a boot disk for access but
>> it seems like a very clumsy way to use a very expensive piece of
>> hardware/software. I'd like to write myself a utility to kludge the
>> lastdrive temporarily while I access multiplatter, then undo the damage
>> after I've finished.
>> 
>
>For each drive letter that is defined in your system, DOS sets aside an 88
>byte block of memory to store info about the associated logical drive.  The
>block is called the CDS, current directory structure, which tells DOS what
>the current directory for the drive is, where DOS can find info about the
>drive's physical characteristics, and whether the drive is a network drive.
>
>So, with that in mind, you can see the difficulty in trying to change the
>lastdrive environment variable; since DOS allocates the memory needed to
>store environment information about drives when it reads config.sys file
>on boot-up.  So, to my knowledge, you can't change the lastdrive after
>the system starts.  Let me know if you find a way around this, though.

If you have QEMM, it come with a program called lastdriv.exe (or .com)
that can add (but not subtract) the lastdrive.  The idea is that you
can start with a low lastdrive in config.sys and than load the rest of
the CDS high.  Similar things can be done to BUFFERS, FILE and FCBS.
I believe the programs work without QEMM as well, but that's where you
can get them from.
--
Stephen Lee
Internet: sl14@crux2.cit.cornell.edu