Mail Archives: cygwin/2010/06/09/09:57:35
On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 12:39, Andy Koppe wrote:
> On 9 June 2010 10:48, Julio Costa wrote:
>>>>And this is where my head got reeeally spinning... can anyone, please,
>>>>explain the reason to why this .exe magic exists, anyway?
>
> As far as I understand it, the original reason for it was that Windows
> 9x always required it. Of course Cygwin 1.7 no longer supports 9x, so
> from that perspective, it's no longer needed.
>
That's how I see it too.
>
>>> [Running in cmd.exe]
>> The point is, that *is not* a reason, because it is easily fixed by
>> "set PATHEXE=3D%PATHEXE%:.".
>
> That's a nice one. I certainly didn't know about that.
>
> Explorer still needs the .exe though.
Nope also.
Try this at a cmd.exe:
D:\ETC\Tools>assoc .=3DMyDefaultLauncher
.=3DMyDefaultLauncher
D:\ETC\Tools>ftype MyDefaultLauncher=3D%COMSPEC% /C "%1"
MyDefaultLauncher=3DC:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /C "%1"
D:\ETC\Tools>regtool set "/user/Software/Microsoft/Command
Processor/AutoRun" 'set PATHEXT=3D%PATHEXT%;.'
Now, try this in a Windows explorer: rename joe.exe (or vi.exe, or
whatever...) to remove the extension.
Now double-click it, and "voil=C3=A1".
DISCLAIMER: This is only a proof-of-concept. There are clearly some
rough edges to remove, but this should give you the general idea...
> More importantly, a lot of build scripts likely depend on the .exe being =
added automatically.
>
Hm. Maybe they shouldn't.
After all, the .exe magic has been around also so that kind of scripts
DIDN'T needed that kind of expectations :)
> The frequent questions and problems around this issue do make me
> wonder though whether it wouldn't indeed be better to drop the .exe
> magic completely, deal with the ensuing pain, but eventually be done
> with it.
>
+1 from me.
--=20
___________
Julio Costa
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