Programs integrated to the system

Da Rossa

Hi, we smart people ( Very Happy

) know that some programs are "bundled" with the Windows OS, (XP in my case), like the notepad.exe and firefox.exe. Both of them can be lauched by going run -> type notepad.exe and it immediately opens. Also for Firefox, after installed, of course. However most programs can't be launched by just typing it's name... you have to type the full path to run it.
So, can I make any program, installed or not (like the .zip archives) to get integrated to the system so I can just type its executable name and launch?
Thanks.

Ok Ill jump right in(im not entirely sure if this works but it should)

First step: (Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment Variables, click New "User variable" and create Variable and name it whatever you want(i recommend "my apps" or similar) with Variable value the directory where you have the files you want integrated eg. c:/my custom programs

Then in the lower box containing system variables look up the Path list and add your new variable on the and i.e it will have blah,blah,blah C:/firefox; my apps
Note that because you linked my apps before you dont have to add c:/ and etc/
I am fairly sure you will have to add any sub directories you use to this list. i.e. blah,blah,blah C:/firefox; my apps; my apps/zips

Hope this helps/ is what you wanted

Da Rossa

Didn't work Sad

.. I did exactly as you told me Sad

Sorry, that was the best I could think of. You might get away with putting shortcuts in your windows directory but that is a pain for each individual file

Studio Madcrow

What you need to do is to set the PATH variable. I have no idea how one actually does that on Windows, but you should be able to Google a solution now that you know what it is you want to do is called.

ThePolemistis

MCFearless' advice will probably work if you enclose "my apps" in percentage signs. It wouldn't occur to me to put variables within variables though. I'd just add it to the end somthing like this

mOrpheuS

There are probably a few ways to be able to run a program from "Start->Run".

However, the one that I normally use, and that I'll recommend (for being the right solution Wink

) is the "App Paths" registry key.

It's pretty straightforward.

For example, if you want to run "F:\somewhere\something.exe" when you type "nothing" in "Start->Run" ... you use the following registry entries (save the text as .reg and merge)

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\nothing.exe]
@="F:\\somewhere\\something.exe"
"Path"="F:\\somewhere"

p.s. - Notice the escaped double back-slashes in the key values, and the ".exe" in the keyname.
If it isn't clear, study the sub-keys at this location in Windows registry editor - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths

p.p.s - One of the great uses of this is to be able to run Opera when you type "iexplore" in "Start->Run" Razz

p.p.p.s - Typical disclaimer, about registry editing being potentially harmful, applicable. Wink

Hope this helps.

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