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http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl Rad Community Technical Discussion Boards (Computer Hardware + PC Software) >> PC Hardware + Software (except Cloning programs) >> "set EXPAND=YES" in AUTOEXEC.BAT means? http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1102026720 Message started by BATboy on Dec 2^nd, 2004 at 6:32pm

Title: "set EXPAND=YES" in AUTOEXEC.BAT means?
Post by BATboy on Dec 2^nd, 2004 at 6:32pm

Hi Guys,

This is amazing - I have searched (well Googled) the 'net, search microsoft.com and no one has ever answered this question...

The line:

set EXPAND=YES

is the second line in the standard Windows 98 installer AUTOEXEC.BAT file (and probably ME, and others?). Many people have simply copied the whole file (with this line) onto their web pages to discuss various points, but no one seems to have ever commented or wondered what this is for.

Obviously, it's setting an environment variable (EXPAND) to the value YES, which is presumably referenced by some common program (in a similar manner to DIRCMD, which sets the default options for 'DIR'), but who can tell me what program actually uses this variable, and what for?

Regards to you all,

Old BATboy.

Title: Re: "set EXPAND=YES" in AUTOEXEC.BAT mea
Post by Clem on Dec 2^nd, 2004 at 6:46pm

I was thinking it might expand the compressed archives o the CD but this is probably wrong.

Title: Re: "set EXPAND=YES" in AUTOEXEC.BAT mea
Post by wang on Oct 26^th, 2005 at 7:09am

I want to know this too.
Would anyone answer this question in details?
Thanks a lot!

Title: Re: "set EXPAND=YES" in AUTOEXEC.BAT mea
Post by NightOwl on Oct 26^th, 2005 at 11:48am

wang

I think *Clem* got it right:

I found this reference--but, there are not a lot of resources that offer help on this item:

See *Expand*

Here's another:

Advanced DOS

And here:

Function Comparisons for PC Operating Systems--DOS--See *Expand*

Title: Re: "set EXPAND=YES" in AUTOEXEC.BAT mea
Post by anadarko on Nov 23^rd, 2005 at 6:09pm

I seem to remember this command in the autoexec.bat file created for the Win 98 boot floppy disk. When booted, a ram disk is created, files are copied to the ramdisk, then the system is forced to reboot with the ram disk becoming the boot disk.
I think the files that are copied to the ram disk were in compressed format on the floppy disk. Setting EXPAND=YES would allow the copied files to be expanded at the same time.
This was a clever way of booting to DOS ( v Win98 ) with a set of programs/utilities that were too big to fit on a single floppy disk.
(This is just my recollection)

anadarko