I did forget the system/user environment. Sorry. For information, if you had two users on the system, you'd set a different value for each user. If there is only one user you'd do what you did.
I have PM set up as my default mail program. I have it set for multiple users, but I only normally use one, so my start menu shortcut says "D:\Program Files\PMail\Programs\winpm-32.exe" -A -I defaultusername .
I just got one of those fancy new keyboards with a key for launching the default email program, but when I use it, it launches PM without specifying a user, so I have to type in the username myself. I would like to have it launch me directly into my normal user, just like the start menu shortcut does.
How do I do this?
Thanks.
C.
Why not just copy the shortcut command line to the keyboard configuration applet (most likely in Control Panel somewhere)? Or am I missing something?
Merry Christmas, by the way. [:)]
You can set the PMUSER evnironment variable to the value after the -I switch on the command line. Where to do that is OS dependent. For pre-Win2K (ME,98,95) it's done in auotexec.bat. For Win2k and XP it can be done trhough the System Properties dialog. That's accessible by right clicking MyComputer and choosing properties. The button is in the last section on the advanced pane.
Bob
[quote user="Cassandra"]
I have PM set up as my default mail program. I have it set for multiple users, but I only normally use one, so my start menu shortcut says "D:\Program Files\PMail\Programs\winpm-32.exe" -A -I defaultusername .
I just got one of those fancy new keyboards with a key for launching the default email program, but when I use it, it launches PM without specifying a user, so I have to type in the username myself. I would like to have it launch me directly into my normal user, just like the start menu shortcut does.
[/quote]
As others have said, you'll have to either configure your new keyboard to add the username, set an environment variable to do it.. Or, modify your system registry: Your keyboard isn't actually calling the entry under your start menu when it starts up your email program.. It's getting the information on how to start your mail program from the system registry, which probably does not match the setting in your start menu. Actually, many people don't realize it, but the start menu is really nothing more than another folder on your computer with a bunch of shortcut links to the real programs. There's nothing truly special about the start menu, except that Windows is designed to read it to get it's information on what to display when you press the start button. Most applications will put their shortcuts in the start menu folders, but very few read the start menu folder to find out how to start other applications, like mail clients. Instead, there are special entries in the system registry for that, which as I said, don't have to be the same as what's on your start menu. Confused yet? LOL (Setting PMail as your default mail client doesn't touch your start menu.. neither to read or write the entry there. It just uses what's in your system registry.)
BTW, you can even customize each method per-user if you have multiple Windows accounts for people to log onto your computer.
Merry Christmas!
C. M.
Thanks, everyone!
I did what Bob said, since I found his instructions the easiest to understand, and it works fine.
By the way, Bob, you forgot to tell me whether I should set it as a user variable or a system variable, or if it would work as either. I set it as a system variable, tried it on two different Windows users, and it works fine, which is what I wanted.
Thanks again.
C.
