Message-ID: <19971027042922.11703.qmail@hotmail.com>
From: "John Patton" <gimli21 AT hotmail DOT com>
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Cc: bporter AT rabble DOT uow DOT edu DOT au
Subject: Re: DOS stuff
Content-Type: text/plain
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 20:29:17 PST
Precedence: bulk


>> Hi guys,
>> 
>> Here's my problem (it always starts with that...):
>> 
>> I would like to be able to set an environment variable in DOS.  I 
would 
>> like to be able to do this with DJGPP.  I would also like to make the 
>> variable stick, i.e. command.com's environment.  
>
>Although theoretically possible, doing this won't always work and it is
>considered a very bad thing to mess with other programs space, 
especially
>once in protected mode (it is hard enough to write a program that works
>under set conditions, let alone when anybody can come along and mess 
with it
>:)
>
>> How can I set a parent 
>> process's environment string to new values, specifically command.com, 
>> using DJGPP?  I know this is a rather odd question, and I'll probably 
>> get flamed for asking something like this about DOS,...  but I 
thought 
>> I'd give it a shot...  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated 
>> because I'll be forced to go back to a 16-bit Borland compiler to 
make 
>> this work <I cringe>.
>> 
>No, don't do that! I've seen this done before, but it was very crude 
even in
>16-bit real mode. I can't remember exactly how, though (but could look 
it
>up)... my suggestion would be just to call another command.com (sure, 
it's
>two more programs in memory, but if your's is small...) and it will get 
a
>copy of yours.
>
>What is the use of the program doing this anyway? I guess another 
approach
>could be to have your program called from a batch file, which calls 
another
>batch file after your program exits, and your program could create this 
file
>and put the appropriate SET instructions in that file...

Actually, Brett, that's what I'm doing--I'm creating a batch file in my 
program...  The program itself is called from an initial batch file that 
then calls the created batch file to set the environment var...  The 
basic idea of the app is to detect what video card is installed on a 
machine and set an environment variable associated with a directory 
where the video card's files are located and copy the files to the 
Windows directory so Windows can run in 256 colors <or higher> on a 
network.  This is being run on a local college's network and I'd like to 
be able to set command.com's environment space instead...  It would 
definitely run a _lot_ cleaner.  I have a method, but I haven't checked 
it's stability on a network yet, _and_ it's in 16-bit Borland code with 
inline assembler.  I'm not against learning a new form of assembler, I 
just would like to get this project finished, and finished the right way 
;)   Graphics programming is *_definitely_* more fun.

Thanks for your help,

-Johnny P.

Sew Windows install.
See Windows run.
See Windows crash.
See Windows install...

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