bug#21323: start-process rejects .com executables

[Björn Lindqvist]

2015-08-22 21:21 GMT+02:00 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>:
>> I found this bug on windows ver 24.5.1. If you try to run a .com file:
>>
>> (start-process "X" "Y" "c:/Windows/System32/tree.com")
>>
>> You get: "Spawning child process: exec format error"
>
> Indeed.
>
>> The cryptic error appears to be a result of the .com extension.
>
> No, it's because .com programs are run via cmdproxy.exe, and there's a
> bug in computing the directory where we look for it.

What is the reason for that? As you know, on modern windowses there is
no difference except for the name between .com and .exe files. If
there was an option for it, I'd set it so my binary is not run through
cmdproxy.exe.

> As a workaround, you can set CMDPROXY in the environment to point to
> cmdproxy.exe (should be in libexec/emacs/24.5/i686-pc-mingw32/
> subdirectory of the directory where you installed Emacs 24.5).
>
> I've now fixed this for the next release so it will work even without
> setting CMDPROXY in the environment.  Thanks.

Thank you for the quick turnaround!

-- 
mvh/best regards Björn Lindqvist