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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bob Pittsfield who wrote (19060)	4/24/2001 7:21:47 PM
From: PMS Witch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110642

Oops! I left something out. When you have the .BAT file working, right click the icon and select Properties, Program tab. Put a check mark in the Close on Exit box. Don't forget clicking Apply button. Now for the weird stuff... Windows will make a .PIF file with the same name primary file name. Windows just does this kind of stuff to confuse us. Think of it as job security for help desk people. Now here's where it gets tricky. You'll want the .PIF file in StartUp folder, and the .BAT file somewhere else. First step is to move the .BAT file to another folder. C:\Windows will do just fine. Use Explorer and drag it to its new home. After re-locating the .BAT file, right click its icon, select Properties, Program tab. Insert the check in Close on Exit box, click Apply and close. In Explorer, drag the new .PIF file to the StartUp folder. Note: the .BAT file icon will be a plain looking box with an image of a gear in the centre, while the .PIF file icon will appear as a MS-DOS icon. You can select a new icon by a right click, Properties, Change Icon... button. Hint: You may wish to enable file extension display in Explorer to reduce confusion. With file extension display suppressed, it's challenging to keep track of .PIF, .BAT, and MS-DOS icons. Cheers, PW. P.S. When you give a command to Windows, it will look for a file of that name to execute. Files can have the same name with different extensions. Since commands are the file name without extension, Windows supplies the extension when it checks the disk. Given the command WORK, Windows will check for WORK.PIF WORK.COM WORK.EXE and WORK.BAT in that order. Windows will execute the first one it finds, disregarding the others. Each of these file types execute differently. Windows needs to examine the extension to know how to deal with the file's contents.