INFO: Configuring Parsing of the AUTOEXEC.BAT File

View products that this article applies to.

System TipThis article applies to a different operating system than the one you are using. Article content that may not be relevant to you is disabled.

This article was previously published under Q124551

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986/EN-US/ ) Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

Windows parses the AUTOEXEC.BAT file during startup by default, which results in the appending of the path statement in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to the system path created by Windows.

You can configure parsing of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file in the Registry by doing the following:

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Run REGEDT32.EXE.
Modify the following value within HKEY_CURRENT_USER:

Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ParseAutoexec

1 = autoexec.bat is parsed
0 = autoexec.bat is not parsed

This has no effect on the parsing of AUTOEXEC.NT or CONFIG.NT by the MS-DOS or 16-bit Windows environments (VDMs).

NOTE: Support for configuring the parsing of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file is also provided via the REGKEY.EXE file included with the Windows NT 3.5 Resource Kit.

Expand all | Collapse all