🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <815573399snz@choc-ice.demon.co.uk>
           guy@choc-ice.demon.co.uk "Guy Snape" writes:

> News articles are downloading to my machine when I dial up but then I get a 
> message saying "Unbatch cannot create a temporary file".  I've tried running
> unbatch from dos with different arguments to no avail.  Whenever I try to read 
> news, (using snews) the appropriate newsgroups appear but they all appear to 
> have 0 posts.  My hard disk is not full!
> 
> What am I doing wrong?  

It sounds as if you haven't got a properly configured directory for
the temporary files created by snews when its processing your news.

From the DIS main menu, press E to configure news, then A to configure
Snews.  Press F6 for 'other options', and the 4th last item on the
screen is 'Temporary file directory'.

I have this set to C:\TMP, though you can use any directory you like as
long as it exists -- lots of people use C:\TEMP -- but it's *not* a good
idea to use a directory in which you keep anything else, just in case
one of the temporary files overwrites other data.

Lots of programs use temp directories, often through an environment
variable set in your autoexec.bat: I have the line
SET TEMP=C:\TMP

Whatever directory you choose, make sure that it does actually exist:
if you are in doubt, create it from the DOS prompt by typing
mkdir c:\tmp
(substitute your own directory name as appropriate).

Good luck!

-- 
/ Philip McNab // philip@siberia.demon.co.uk /