command.com vs cmd.exe (was Re: Error on system() in fP 5.0.14 Win32 - Need Help)

[John Esak]

Ahh, it's the 8.3 thing... Well, all I know is I was going crazy until I
found cmd.com when it first came out. I was thinking you couldn't do:

  cd "c:\Program Files"

For love or money.  

Yes, I remember the stuff you showed me could be done in batch now that I
guess cmd.com is updated. Batch used to be virtually useless, now you can at
least do some cool (read uesful) things.  I rmember absoluteing *needing* it
to be able to auto.run the Survivor CD's filePro search angine. That would
have been horrible if I could not have gotten people right to the search
box.  IN fact, there were a couple things that relied on fairly
sophisticated things that command.com simply can't do.  I hated limiting my
products to XP and higher... But, really who cares at this point, or even 6
years ago.  God, has it been that long already since all that stuff... The
filePro Room was early in the decasde... The decade is now over!!!!  Sheesh.

John


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kenneth Brody [mailto:kenbrody at spamcop.net] 
> Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 10:44 AM
> To: john at valar.com
> Cc: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Subject: command.com vs cmd.exe (was Re: Error on system() in 
> fP 5.0.14 Win32 - Need Help)
> 
> On 9/2/2010 10:19 AM, John Esak wrote:
> [...]
> > Seconed thing.  The reason I always use "cmd" nistead of 
> command in the
> > Windows Run Dialoog or when calling it from any process is 
> that "cmd" will
> > allow you to CD (change directory) to a path that contains 
> SPACES in it, and
> > "command" will not.  This is usually very important.
> [...]
> 
> Well, my 64-bit Win7 box finally no longer includes 
> command.com, though I 
> don't know if it's a Win7 thing, or a 64-bit thing.  My 
> 32-bit Vista system 
> still had command.com on it.
> 
> The reason command.com doesn't take paths with spaces in it 
> is because it 
> only knows about 8.3 filenames.
> 
> For example, if I'm using cmd.exe at the "c:\program files\mozilla 
> thunderbird" directory, with the prompt being the path, I might see:
> 
>      c:\program files\mozilla thunderbird > command.com
>      Windows version something-or-other
>      Copyright (c) whatever...
>      c:\PROGRA~1\MOZILL~2 >
> 
> It also doesn't have all the newer features that cmd.exe has, 
> being the same 
> old command.com from MS-DOS days.  While cmd.exe is far short 
> of something 
> like bash, it's light years ahead of command.com's limits.
> 
> -- 
> Kenneth Brody
>