Windows 95 Environment and Applications Spawning Additional Windows Applications

Keywords:    runenviron

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Question:

I am running a winbatch script that sets some environment variables (EnvironSet) before starting a windows application. Following this the application just started spawns another windows application.

I'm getting an error that a file is not found, which it is trying to spawn. In fact the file in a directory that is included in the PATH.

In Windows3.1 & NT4.0, the second application inherits the environment. In Windows95 it does not? Do you know the reason why & what to do about it.

Answer:

It's an awful situation. There is not much you can do about it. You could ask you application vendor to make sure any processes it spawns inherit the environment. They will probaly act confused.

The RegApp and EnvironSet only set the path for the EXE that WinBatch launched.

If the spawned program is real smart it can understand the RegApp setting....but I've found very few programs that are.

If you need a systmwide path, the autoexec.bat is it.

Environment handling in Win95 is awful. I know of no really good solution.

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Article ID:   W12927

Filename:   Win95 Environment and App Spawns.txt