Win2k Out of Environment Space for old DOS batch files

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bruce Scherzinger
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Bruce Scherzinger

Our company is moving everyone from Windows98 to Win2k or XP. In the
process, several of our old batch files no longer work. Most of this
is due to insufficient environment space (the batch procedures use
lots of it). How can Win2k be configured to provide additional
environment space to DOS applications?

I noticed that command.com has a setting for initial environment
space. How can I get Win2k to use command.com instead of cmd.exe as
the DOS shell?

Thanks in advance,
Bruce Scherzinger
Vienna, VA
 
Bruce Scherzinger said:
Our company is moving everyone from Windows98 to Win2k or XP. In the
process, several of our old batch files no longer work. Most of this
is due to insufficient environment space (the batch procedures use
lots of it). How can Win2k be configured to provide additional
environment space to DOS applications?

I noticed that command.com has a setting for initial environment
space. How can I get Win2k to use command.com instead of cmd.exe as
the DOS shell?

Thanks in advance,
Bruce Scherzinger
Vienna, VA
Click to expand...

Try this:

Control Panel / System / Advanced / Env. Variables
ComSpec = c:\winnt\system32\cmd.exe /e:2048
 
Thanks for the reply, Pegasus...

In cmd.exe, the /E: option has a different function than with
command.com:

CMD [/A | /U] [/Q] [/D] [/E:ON | /E:OFF] [/F:ON | /F:OFF] [/V:ON |
/V:OFF]
[[/S] [/C | /K] string]
....
/E:ON Enable command extensions (see below)
/E:OFF Disable command extensions (see below)
....

I have no access to the System environment myself, though I could ask
our IS department to make whatever changes are needed. Point is I
won't do that unless I am certain the changes will work. I have
already asked them for help on this and they know nothing.

I already tried setting ComSpec in the User environment to point to
command.com and using the /e:2048 option, but that didn't work. I am
guessing the System variable overrides in this case.

My eyes and ears are still open.

Thanks again,
Bruce
 
I'm glad your eyes and ears are still open . . .

I'm aware of the /e:on switch with cmd.exe. I copied the tip I gave
you from some other post and assumed (without testing it) that
it would work. It seems I was wrong.

Have you considered invoking a secondary command processor
for the purpose of running your legacy batch file? The following
command works very well when included in a batch file:

command /e:3096 /c c:\temp\test.bat

Without the /e: switch I ran out of environment space. With the
switch I could set the amount of memory up to 32kBytes.

Bruce Scherzinger said:
Thanks for the reply, Pegasus...

In cmd.exe, the /E: option has a different function than with
command.com:

CMD [/A | /U] [/Q] [/D] [/E:ON | /E:OFF] [/F:ON | /F:OFF] [/V:ON |
/V:OFF]
[[/S] [/C | /K] string]
...
/E:ON Enable command extensions (see below)
/E:OFF Disable command extensions (see below)
...

I have no access to the System environment myself, though I could ask
our IS department to make whatever changes are needed. Point is I
won't do that unless I am certain the changes will work. I have
already asked them for help on this and they know nothing.

I already tried setting ComSpec in the User environment to point to
command.com and using the /e:2048 option, but that didn't work. I am
guessing the System variable overrides in this case.

My eyes and ears are still open.

Thanks again,
Bruce

"Pegasus \(MVP\)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
Try this:

Control Panel / System / Advanced / Env. Variables
ComSpec = c:\winnt\system32\cmd.exe /e:2048
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I found a simple workaround for this problem. I simply created a
variable in the User space called "SPACE" and set it to a big long
text string explaining why it is there (a few hundred characters). Now
in my batch file, I simply delete this variable (set SPACE=) and that
frees enough space for my batch file to work with.

Kludgey, tricky, but it works.

Bruce
 
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