🚀 go-pugleaf

Simon Oldfield <soldfiel@nla.gov.au> writes:
>Can I extend the length of the PATH somehow ?
>I tried putting a SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /E:32768 in my CONFIG.SYS but it

That is far too large an environment, and is not the source of your problem.
In version 6 (maybe 5, too) you can get > 120 chars in PATH if you set
PATH from within config.sys, and don't modify it in autoexec.bat or later.

Alternatively, look at what these utilities have to offer:

ftp ftp.cdrom.com  /pub/garbo/garbo_pc/envutil/
bigpath.zip     Make Dos path command almost twice as big
desetp12.zip    Sets path variables longer than 128 bytes

ftp ftp.cdrom.com  /pub/simtel/msdos/pathutil/
chpath11.zip  B   17463  941112  Extend PATH and manipulate PATH entries
cpath20.zip   B   12357  900413  Extend PATH to more than 128 characters
setpth14.zip  B   13325  900406  Set PATH to more than 127 characters
spoon1a.zip   B   48087  881008  Spoon Path v1a: menued 4.5k TSR path extender
xpath39.zip   B   20389  911224  Xpath 3.9, DOS Path Extender for DOS 5.0

One furthur possibility:-

ftp ftp.cdrom.com /pub/garbo/garbo_pc/envutil/rbsetnv1.zip

This archive provides a collection of utilities that you may find useful.
It creates and works with a PATH >128 - I don't know if there is a limit
apart from that imposed by the environment space (I haven't explored it to
the point of discovering its limits).

ADDPATH
CHGPATH
DELPATH
INCR
INSPATH
SETENV
EVAL

These allow you to append something to PATH, to replace a directory located
somewhere within PATH, to delete a directory from PATH, etc.
If a UNIX user, you should feel quite at home with the ` ...` construct.

Example: to append a directory to the current PATH:

setenv path `addpath c:\maths\tools\excel_4`

Note: The SET and PATH commands (without args) in DOS only print out the
      first 127 chars of PATH, so are not a lot of help when PATH >128.

The method setenv uses should still allow new software to automatically
install itself by the usual method of appending to PATH in your autoexec.bat
file.  Set PATH to something well short of the 127 limit, and follow it by
the use of setenv to add furthur desired directories.

Australian users can get these files from ftp archie.au  /micros/pc/...
--
John Savage               koala@sydney.dialix.com.au