Do You Remember the SUBST Command?

Published: 2019-05-25
Last Updated: 2019-05-25 21:54:52 UTC
by Didier Stevens (Version: 1)
3 comment(s)

I had to test a program on Windows using a particular drive letter.

So I was thinking of mounting an ISO file, or a VeraCrypt volume, and have a drive with that particular drive letter on my machine. And then I remember something ... old ... really old.

Back in the early nineties, I often had to do something similar on MS DOS. I used the SUBST command.

It still exists on Windows. You provide an unused drive letter and a path on an existing drive, and voilà:

Didier Stevens
Senior handler
Microsoft MVP
blog.DidierStevens.com DidierStevensLabs.com

Keywords: subst
3 comment(s)

Comments

I certainly haven't forgotten about SUBST. This Windows 10 Pro system gets seven SUBSTed drives assigned via a BAT file at login.

For example, the V: drive is where I keep documents. The underlying folder is C:\!ken1\!documents.
I still use this one occasionally, along with 'pushd', 'popd' & various other 'old school' commands.
My favorite old command that ms removed in their progression of limiting does access was undelete... That was my favorite, don't know why they ever removed it... I think it was around windows 95, when they were trying to get everyone into Windows only without dos, I kind have to thank then for it tho, cause it made me compile and learn Linux via Slackware 1.0. I know a lot of what I know because of that...

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