Why isn't TCSTART.BTM run?

May 20, 2008
12,176
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
This may have something to do with my thread about the console caption; I don't know. There is at least one difference between the two computers.
On my work computer, TCSTART.BTM is NOT run by any instance of TCC v16. And I can't figure out why. Everything seems to be set up right. Here's a clip from a normal instance of TCCv16 on that computer, started from Start\Run with /ip.
Code:
d:\tc16> echo %_ininame
D:\TC16\TCMD.INI

d:\tc16> grep -i startpath %_ininame
TCStartPath=d:\tc16
4StartPath=d:\tc16

d:\tc16> head /n3 d:\tc16\tcstart.btm
echo PPID = %_PPID
IF %_PIPE == 1 ( CURSOR OFF & QUIT )
IF %_TRANSIENT == 1 QUIT

Regardless of how I start TCC v16 on that machine, I do not see the message that TCSTART.BTM should produce. And other things done in TCSTART.BTM also don't get done.

Any ideas?
 

rconn

Administrator
Staff member
May 14, 2008
12,557
167
TCC doesn't do anything complicated when looking for and executing TCSTART. There's only three possible reasons why TCSTART wouldn't be executed:

1) It's finding another TCSTART first
2) You have a privilege issue
3) TCSTART isn't there

Try running "echo %_tcstart".

(BTW, "4StartPath" (the obsolete name) and "TCStartPath" map to the same TCMD.INI directive, so there isn't any point in having both of them.)
 
May 20, 2008
12,176
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
If I watch with ProcessMonitor, I see

QueryDirectory d:\tc16\tcstart.* SUCCESS
QueryDirectory d:\tc16\tcstart.com NO_SUCH_FILE
more like that, for EXE, BAT, CMD, VBS, VBE, JS, JSE, WSF, WSH, MSC

But there's no QueryDirectory for TCSTART.BTM!

.BTM is not listed in PATHEXT. That doesn't bother TCCv15. Adding it made TCCv16 work correctly. Why the change?

It also changed the behavior described my other thread about the elevated console caption. I'll comment there in a minute.
 
May 20, 2008
12,176
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
If you have PATHEXT set, TCC will only look for files with the specified extensions.
Has it worked that way for a long time? When I tried TCC15 on the computer with PATHEXT set but not containing .BTM I saw that TCSTART.BTM was being executed (or so I thought).
 
May 26, 2008
550
6
(BTW, "4StartPath" (the obsolete name) and "TCStartPath" map to the same TCMD.INI directive, so there isn't any point in having both of them.)
If I remove 4StartPath from the INI file, using OPTION and then pressing OK puts it back in.
 

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