First of all I want to let you know that I have my system set to slective startup in MSCONFIG ! I have removed alot of un-needed programs from running at startup in MSCONFIG and this has my user resources going up much higher then B/4,and has made my system more stable ! My ? is I have unchecked the enviromenmt variables on the general tab in MSCONFIG without any ill effects on the performance of my system .Can someone explain to me if this is OK ,and what benifit exactly loading the enviromment variables at startup would have ,or what ill effect not loading them may have ?
Thank You
Nick

'Environment variables' are system settings that were orignally configured from the DOS startup file (autoexec.bat) using 'SET' statements etc, and can consist of a variety of things, including the PATH (although the default PATH is built in to Windows).

Important? Depends on your system, but I can't imagine what you hope to gain by disabling.

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That what is to be lost if its left unchecked ? I was having a problem of my DOS box opening saying "Fail to Read Drive D
Abort,Retry,Fail (that is my CD-RW ,and its working fine) I fond when I removed the check mark from the emviroment variables on the general tab in MSCONFIG ,Windows went back to opening the DOS box with the command prompt to C:\WINDOWS\DESKTOP !
Thank You Nick

Ah, I see - so you're still pursuing your "DOS" problem?

It might prove helpful to determine what those variables are - check msconfig -> environment and you can disable or *edit* individual variables from there

I've tried looking at your ill advised post in the DOS forum - - it's a bit hard to follow, but it seems pretty obvious where the "D: problem" was coming from:

Prompt=C:$p$g
Temp=C: \WINDOWS\TEMP
TMP= C: \WINDOWS\TEMP
COMSPEC=C: \WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM
HOME= d; \home
PATH=.;d\cygwin\bin;d:\

(plenty of typos there - hopefully the actual lines are a little bit different)

Anyhow, just edit (or disable) your PATH to reflect what's actually on your C: drive and leave D: out of it, likewise for the 'HOME' variable

See? Not really that hard to fix

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Thinking about it a bit more - likely very few (if any) of those variables are necessary, but you may want to correct the PATH, as some Antivrus run a scan before Windows fully loads, and might need it - - anyhow, try editing yours from msconfig to this:

PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND

PROMPT $P$G

TEMP C:\WINDOWS\TEMP

TMP C:\WINDOWS\TEMP

COMSPEC C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM

... and just delete or disable the 'HOME' one

The 'variable value' has to be pretty exact with regard to spacing & punctuation

As you've noticed, there are no immediate ill effects from disabling all of the variables, but it's better to fix things in case of future need

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Hey Guys I just want to thank you for taking the time to help me with this and ,I promise to now end my inquiries on this subject ,I have copied and pasted the recomended fixes and will simply follow the directions supplied ! Sorry if I've been a P.I.A. .Wishing you and yours a relaxing weekend and again thank you !
Sincereely Nick