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This page includes some basic techniques that can make life simpler for users of WPDOS under Windows. Additional items will be added in the future.
Windows, like DOS, lets you open any directory by using a drive letter of your choice (such as G: or W:), instead of the directory's actual name (which might be something like "C:\Documents and Settings\Roscoe\My Documents" or "D:\MyFiles\2005\Letters\ToMom"). Compared to long directory names, drive letters are much easier to type in WordPerfect's List Files screen, or anywhere else.
Under Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7, the simplest way to assign drive letters to directories is to use Thomas Bigler's free Vsubst utility, which can set drive letters and directories for you. Be certain to choose the Permanent option so that the drive letters will be available when you restart Windows.
However, I strongly recommend a better method, which allows your drive letters to be used by many of Windows' inner workings, and produces smoother results. To use this method, start by downloading the Autoexnt Service files, originally from Microsoft's Windows 2000 Resource Kit. Download the files from the link in the preceding sentence; open the ZIP file and copy all the files to your \Windows\System32 directory. Then perform the following steps:
Note: If, and only if, you have a 64-bit version of Windows, where you see "\Windows\System32" in the steps below, substitute "\Windows\SysWOW64".
(1) Using a text editor such as Edit.com or Notepad, create a file named Autoexnt.bat in the same \Windows\System32 folder into which you copied the Autoexnt Service files. If you use Notepad, make sure to use quotation marks around the name "Autoexnt.bat" when saving the file, to prevent Notepad from adding the extension .TXT to the name. This file should contain lines that look something like this (replace the drive letters and folders with the ones you want to use, and replace username with your own login name):
subst.exe L: D:\Letters
subst.exe M: "C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents"
Warning: Only assign a drive letter to a folder with \username\ in its path if you are only person who will use this computer. The drive letter assignments that you make will be visible to anyone who uses any account on this computer, and your "My Documents" folder will be visible as a drive letter to other users - not their "My Documents" folder!
Use quotation marks around long folder names (a "long" name is one with more than eight letters in any part of the name, or with a space anywhere in the name). Save the file.
(2) Open a command prompt; under Vista, Windows 7, or later, you absolutely must open the command prompt "as administrator"; if you do not know how to do this, search the web to find out. At the command prompt, navigate to your \Windows\System32 folder. Enter the following command at the prompt:
instexnt install
You should see a message saying that the service was created successfully.
(3) (Before performing this step, if you are not logged in on an administrative account, log in on an administrative account.) Open a command prompt (or stay at the one you opened in the preceding step), navigate to your \Windows\System32 folder, and enter the following command at the prompt:
net start autoexnt
Your assigned drive letters should now be available to WordPerfect and any other program.
(4) To be certain that the drive letters are assigned every time you start Windows, use the Start Menu, choose Run..., and enter services.msc and wait for the Services window to open. (Help! My Vista Start Menu does not have a Run... box!) Find AutoExNT listed under the Name column. Right-click on it (or press Shift-F10); choose Properties; on the General tab, make sure that the Startup Type is listed as Automatic. (Wait! What exactly does "right-click" mean?)
Note: Unlike most Windows "services," this one uses no memory and will not slow your system; the service runs the AutoExNT.bat file and then exits.
Under Windows 95 and 98, the simplest way to assign a drive letter to a directory is to add the SUBST command to your C:\Autoexec.bat file. For example, if you have a directory named D:\Letters, you can access it as drive L: by adding the following command to your C:\Autoexec.bat file:
c:\windows\command\subst L: D:\Letters
If you want to assign a letter to a directory that has a long filename (one with more than eight characters in any part of the name, or with a space anywhere in the name), then you need to use the "short name" of the directory, which you can find by opening a DOS prompt (Help! How do I open or create a DOS prompt?), navigating to the directory above the one you want to use with the Subst command, and enter DIR; the short name of the directory will appear in the left-hand column. For example, "My Documents" will appear as "MYDOC~1", so the command in Autoexec.bat should look like this:
c:\windows\command\subst M: C:\MYDOC~1
You may add as many lines with the Subst command to Autoexec.bat as you like, but do not use drive letters already assigned to CD-ROM and other drives, and avoid using the letter Z:, which is often used by installation programs.
Alternatively, you can use Thomas Bigler's free Vsubst utility to set drive letters and directories for you. Be certain to choose the Permanent option so that the drive letters will be available when you restart Windows.
Under Windows Me, for each set of drive letter and directory name that you want to use, create a new shortcut (Help! What's a shortcut?) with a command line similar to the ones shown above and add it to your Startup program group in the Start Menu; on the program tab of the shortcut, under Run, choose Minimized. During startup, an Explorer window will open showing the contents of the directory; probably there is a way to prevent this from happening, but I haven't tried to find out what it might be.
Alternatively, you can use Thomas Bigler's free Vsubst utility to set drive letters and directories for you. Be certain to choose the Permanent option so that the drive letters will be available when you restart Windows.
Under Windows NT, for each set of drive letter and directory name that you want to use, create a new shortcut (Help! What's a shortcut?) with a command line similar to the ones shown above (but with the Subst.exe program listed as being in %windir%\system32\subst.exe) and add this shortcut to your Startup program group in the Start Menu (which you will find in a folder named something like C:\winnt\Profiles\username). On the program tab of the shortcut, under Run, choose Minimized.
Alternatively, you can use Thomas Bigler's free Vsubst utility to set drive letters and directories for you. Be certain to choose the Permanent option so that the drive letters will be available when you restart Windows.
When you launch a DOS program that does not have a desktop or other shortcut, or when you launch WPDOS from the right-click Explorer menu (Wait! What exactly does "right-click" mean?) Windows uses the memory and other settings found in a special shortcut file named _default.pif, found in your Windows directory. (Note that the file name begins with an underscore character.)
Under Windows NT, 2000, or XP: Use Windows Explorer to navigate to your Windows directory; if you see a message saying that you should not view the files, and asking if you want to do so, say Yes. Use the View menu to switch to Details view; navigate to the icon named _default or _default.pif (you may not see the .pif extension in the window), right-click on it, and choose Properties. Go to the Memory tab and specify the largest available amount of Extended (XMS) memory. If you use WPDOS 5.1 or 5.1+, or if you use any abbreviation-expander or other add-on software with WPDOS 6.x, also set Expanded (EMS) memory to the highest available number. Click OK, and exit the Explorer window. The changes you make here may or may not affect specific DOS applications, but should apply to most of them.
Under Vista or Windows 7: Before you can follow the procedure described above (the same procure used under Windows NT, 2000, or XP), you must give yourself permission to modify the _default.pif file. To do this, make sure that you are logged into Vista or Windows 7 with an administrative account. In the search field in the Start Menu, type CMD, but instead of pressing Enter, press Ctrl-Shift-Enter to open a command prompt in administrative mode. When the command window opens, enter the following commands:
cd /D %systemroot%
takeown /A /F %systemroot%\_default.pif
icacls %systemroot%\_default.pif /grant Users:F
Close the command window. You may now modify _default.pif as described in the instructions above for Windows NT, 2000, or XP.