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Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 11:57:15 -0400
To: Benjamin Riefenstahl <Benjamin DOT Riefenstahl AT ision DOT net>,
        cygwin AT sources DOT redhat DOT com
From: "Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" <lhall AT rfk DOT com>
Subject: Re: Treatment of x:path again
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At 06:57 AM 10/17/2000, Benjamin Riefenstahl wrote:
>Hi Lassi,
>
>Lassi A. Tuura wrote:
> > FWIW, it seems this isn't even possible under Win32.  Based on MSDN docs
> > it sounds like Win32 maintains only one current directory and really
> > knows nothing about disk drives in that context.
>
>Indeed, a simple test on NT4/SP6 using only Win32 functions
>SetCurrentDirectory() and GetCurrentDirectory() confirms that Windows
>itself does not care about drives in this context.


Quite true.  In fact, NT-based systems really don't know about drives at
all.  It uses its object manager to create a symbolic reference to the 
actual disk partition (which NT does know about) to create a "drive" name.
When it sees a drive name from the user or an application, NT-based systems 
just map the drive given, using the symbolic reference in the object manager, 
to the actual disk partition path that NT knows about.  Path resolution 
proceeds from there.  Its clear that since NT-based systems don't really
understand the drive concept, the concept of directories on a drive is not
innate to the O/S either.  

Thanks for letting me speak without contributing much!;-)



Larry Hall                              lhall AT rfk DOT com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      http://www.rfk.com
118 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
Holliston, MA 01746                     (508) 893-9889 - FAX


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