A "DOS Path" means two different things. First, the Path command as described in this definition is an internal command that sets up a search path to one or more directories. If you type in a program name on the DOS command line, and that program is not found in the current directory, DOS looks for the "path environment variable." If the path variable is present, it searches for the program you specified in all the directories named in that path.

Second, a "DOS path" is the naming convention used to describe a file on a DOS or Windows disk. The path, in this case, is the route to the file starting with the drive letter followed by the names of all the directories that lead up to that file. For more on this routing method, look up DOS path name below. Also read DOS abc's and DOS directories.

The Path command is placed into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, which is executed on startup. The following example sets up a search path to C:\(root), C:\DOS and E:\UTILITY. Directory names are separated with a semicolon (;):

           path c:\;c:\dos;e:\utility

To add the C:\123 directory to the example above, you would add ;c:\123 to the end of the line, resulting in:

     path c:\;c:\dos;e:\utility;c:\123

What Goes in the Path?

The directories typically named in the path are the DOS directory, so that all DOS external commands (Format, Xcopy, etc.) can be executed no matter what directory you are in and directories that contain utilities or batch files that perform some function on files no matter where they are located. See DOS AUTOEXEC.BAT.