RAMDFIND Version 2.2 (updated to correct envrionment variable problems)

My name is Shane Kent ( SHAKEY1980@HOTMAIL.COM ), I am a Canadian and live in 
what is referred to as Silicon Valley North (Ottawa, Ontraio, Canada). I currently 
work on contract to Compaq Canada. I started out working for Digital Equipment 
providing support for Micosoft's Canadian customers, Microsoft contracted Digital 
to provide some of the support for their Canadian customers. Currently I provide 
technical knowledge to several support groups at Compaq (both consumer and commercial).

Aside from providing technical information to telephone support personal, I 
occassionally program (mostly C/C++ and Assembly language). RAMDFIND is the first 
of many freeware tools I plan to release. The RAMDFIND tools is well tested and has 
been in use for a couple of months. I will release more tools as freeware after 
sufficient testing and debugging has been done. 

RAM drive finder, used to locate the Microsoft RAMDRIVE and set the result 
to a DOS environment variable. The RAMDFIND tool sets the RAM drive letter 
and accompanying colon to the RAMDRVL environment variable. This program is 
designed for use from a booatble diskette or CD, and the program will not 
correctly from within a DOS Window (MS Windows Virtual Machine).

RAMDFIND stops scanning drives upon locating the RAM drive, and will not set the 
environment variable if no RAM drive is located.

The RAMDFIND tool searches from drive Z down to drive C looking for the RAM 
drive, to avoid any unformatted hard drives. Any unformatted hard drive it attempts 
to read will generate the 'Abort, Retry, Fail', pressing "F" to fail will cause the 
program to proceed in searching for the RAM drive. Pressing "A" will abort the program 
and the RAM drive will not be located.

An unformatted hard drive will cause the 'Abort, Retry, Fail' DOS error, but 
hard drive volumes (drive letters) should exist below the RAM drive, and seeing 
RAMDFIND searches in reverse order (Z to C) it should not encounter an unformatted 
hard drive.

Any removable media it scans across will be bypassed to avoid the 'Abort, Retry, Fail' 
DOS error.

The environment variable is for use within DOS batch files to copy or extract files to 
the MS RAM drive. The variable can also be used to locate the RAM drive to modify 
files within the RAM drive.


Example:
RAMDRVL=E:


Run the DOS "SET" command to view environment variables. The SHELL= line in the CONFIG.SYS 
file is used to control the DOS environment space as well as COMMAND.COM functionality. For 
more information on increaing the DOS environment space see MS knowledgebase articles 
Q230205 and/or Q33449. For progamming information on locating MS RAM drive see MS article 
Q113418. For default size and limitations of RAMDRIVE.SYS see MS article Q77052.

The GSAR.EXE tool (Global Search And Replace) can be used from BAT file(s) to 
replace the contents of INI (text) files. Gsar.exe (1994) is by Tormod Tjaberg 
(tormod@oslonett.no) and Hans Peter Verne of Norway. Freely available on the 
Internet in the gsar110.zip file.

This tool is ideal for use with the Microsoft EXTRACT.EXE program, used to extract 
compressed files from a CAB file. The MS CABARC.EXE program is used to create 
CAB files.

RAMDFIND is freeware tool written in Borland Turbo C++ version 3.
The programming is a combination of C++ and Assembly languages.

Although RAMDFIND has been well tested and I feel confident in it's functionality, 
here comes the generic message I am sure most of the computer world is used to seeing. 
This program is provided as is, I accept no liability for any damages or loss of data 
incurred during it's use. This program in no way writes to drives it scans, so data 
should not be lost as a result of it's use.

Should you have any questions or feedback, please send email to the hotmail address I 
noted above.

Designed and written by: Shane Kent
Co-designed and tested by: Lewis Brewer
Date: August 2001
