DOS - CDROM letter [Resolved - work around]

[Bruce Fox]

Hi all, non-vb time

1. How can I return (thru a batch file / command line) the drive letter of the CDROM, or

2. If I have a batch file resident on a CD, can I do something like 'Echo Path' and have it display the 'current path' (being the drive letter).


Scenario:
I need to pass a file as a parameter to a M$ app, and this particular app requires a full path for the param. As the file will be on CD, I don't want to 'hard' code the drive letter .

I think I have tried all internal and external DOS commands and %systemroot% etc!



Bruce.

[Dave Sell]

DOS doesnt know the difference between a harddrive drive letter and a cdrom drive letter.

What OS is this?

[Bruce Fox]

XP/2000

I know that I can do it in VB, C++ or script, but I thought I could simply do it thru DOS somehow.



Bruce.

[Dave Sell]

Originally posted by Bruce Fox
XP/2000

I know that I can do it in VB, C++ or script, but I thought I could simply do it thru DOS somehow.

Bruce.

Somehow, yes it can be done, but not on a default installation of DOS. If somehow, someone, somewhere, were to create DOS environment variables like:

CDDRIVE=E:\

or something like that, THEN DOS could use that environment variable to determine the drive letter of a CDROM.

But you will have to place a line in the user's autoexec.bat file to remain persistent.

[dglienna]

How about the LASTDRIVE? Unless there are multiple CD drives, then the highest one is the one that you want.

this is usually in the autoexec.bat file on systems with a CD.

[Bruce Fox]

Thanks for the replies guys,

I have a work around (using VBScript).

I did however find two examples to do it with DOS!
Both involved iterating past the alphabet.
So for anyone interested, it can be done with a few lines of DOS (which is what I was trying to avoid).


Here is the test Script:

Option Explicit
 
Dim objFSO     'File System Object
Dim objArgs     'Arguments
 
'Set Objects
Set objFSO = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments
 
If objArgs.Count <> 0 Then
    msgbox objFSO.GetFolder("\") & objArgs(0)
Else
    MsgBox "No FileName was given"
End If
 
Set objFSO = Nothing
Set objArgs = Nothing

The trick was using GetFolder without specifying a drive/path


And after all that I'm probably not going to use it anyway




Bruce.