What affects the default directory that opens up for cmd.exe?

[Phoenixhunter]

Sort of hard to describe, but when you go to Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (enter), the command line that pops up is set in a specific directory. Typically it is situated in your My Documents directory (c:\document and setting\<user name>\my documents.

For some reason, mine has been trying to appear in a network drive. It doesn't cause any real problems, but I'm curious.

 

[ZoomStop]

Like everything in Windoze it is in the registry.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Command Processor
to be exact.

This site can get you going on putting it back in order:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/autoruncmd.htm

What changed it in the first place though is a very good question!

 

[ValuedCustomer]

That's weird cuz mine has been changing around recently as well. Currently it's defaulting to "C:\Program Files\Symantec_Client_Security\Symantec AntiVirus>" but I'll be damned if I know why. No big deal though, whenever I need to run ping-type commands it's just a "cd \winnt\system32" away. --- I'm pretty sure there's a config .txt file in the WINNT folder that can be edited to change the default but I'm just to lazy to go looking for it.

 

[kamper]

When I have a windows machine, I usually keep a shortcut on the QuickLaunch bar and I set up the "Open In" directory of the shortcut to be what I want. Of course that doesn't really have much to do with the original problem 😛

 

[RideFree]

default "start in" directory is...
%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%