SUBST


In computing, SUBST is a command on the DOS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and ReactOS operating systems used for substituting paths on physical and logical drives as virtual drives.

Overview

In MS-DOS, the SUBST command was added with the release of MS-DOS 3.1. The command is similar to floating drives, a more general concept in operating systems of Digital Research origin, including CP/M-86 2.x, Personal CP/M-86 2.x, Concurrent DOS, Multiuser DOS, System Manager 7, REAL/32, as well as DOS Plus and DR DOS. DR DOS 6.0 includes an implementation of the command. The command is also available in FreeDOS and PTS-DOS. The Windows SUBST command is available in supported versions of the command line interpreter cmd.exe. In Windows NT, SUBST uses to create the disk mappings.
The JOIN command is the "opposite" of SUBST, because JOIN will take a drive letter and make it appear as a directory.
Some versions of MS-DOS COMMAND.COM support the undocumented internal TRUENAME command which can display the "true name" of a file, i.e. the fully qualified name with drive, path, and extension, which is found possibly by name only via the PATH environment variable, or through SUBST, JOIN and ASSIGN filesystem mappings.

Syntax

This is the command syntax in Windows XP to associate a path with a drive letter:
SUBST path]
SUBST drive1: /D

Parameters

Using the SUBST command with no parameters will display a list of current virtual drives.

Examples

Mapping a drive

This means that, for example, to map C:'s root to X:, the following command would be used at the command-line interface:

C:\>SUBST X: C:\

Upon doing this, a new drive called X: would appear under the My Computer virtual folder in Windows Explorer.

Unmapping a drive

To unmap drive X: again, the following command needs to by typed at the command prompt:

C:\>SUBST X: /D

Custom label

A custom label can be assigned to a drive letter created in this way by way of a registry key, which can be created by renaming the SUBST drive in Windows Explorer/My Computer.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons\M\DefaultLabel\
= Your Drive Label
"M" represents the drive letter to assign a custom label to.
However, labels created for SUBST drives in this manner are overridden by the label of the host drive/partition: the custom labels are only used if the host drive has no label. One may then:
  1. Delete the host's drive label;
  2. Create the proper registry keys for the SUBST drive letter;
  3. Create the proper registry keys for the host drive letter ;
  4. Re-create the SUBST drive to see label changes applied.
In addition the LABEL command is able to change the label name
LABEL : "Your label value"

Persisting across reboots

Drive letters mapped in this way are not available during system startup for services nor do they persist across a reboot. However, with a registry modification it is possible to assign a path to a drive letter during startup so it is available to system services and persists across a reboot.
Create a new registry entry "String Value" in the following key:

The name should be "X:" where X is the drive letter.
The value should be the path in the form:
or in form:
or in form:
There are tools available to make the necessary changes for you.
The relative to this thematic registry key is

It defines mapping of drive letters into particular hard disk partitions, similar to /etc/fstab on a Unix system. It also can be edited manually, but only at that time while that particular installed Window operation system is "inactive". So that, for example, if you currently boot from "D:\Windows" then you can edit the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices key of Windows that is installed in a "C:\Windows" folder, for an instance by doing the following actions:
  1. run command: reg load hklm\$system C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system
  2. run command: regedit.exe
  3. edit registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\$system\MountedDevices
  4. close regedit.exe
  5. run command: reg unload hklm\$system

    Other methods for persisting across reboots

Method 3 is the recommended approach, but the others may work as well.

Method 1

Create a batch file to run the built-in SUBST command to create a virtual drive letter for the existing mount points and place it in the user accounts startup folder.
Here is an example:


@ECHO off
SUBST f: d:\mount\db
SUBST g: d:\mount\log

The user must log off and back on or the service must be restarted for the changes to take effect.

Method 2

Edit the registry to run the built-in subst command during computer startup or user logon by leveraging the appropriate Run registry key. The easiest way to do this is to create a registry file, and double click the file to import the settings into the registry.
Example to run during computer boot

REGEDIT4
"F Drive"="SUBST f: d:\\mount\\db"
"G Drive"="SUBST g: d:\\mount\\log"

The computer must be rebooted for the changes to take effect.
Example of user logon

REGEDIT4
"F Drive"="SUBST f: d:\\mount\\db"
"G Drive"="SUBST g: d:\\mount\\log"

The user must log off and back on for the changes to take effect.

Method 3

Edit the registry to create virtual drives to the desired mount points across reboots for all users by leveraging the DOS Devices registry key. The easiest way to do this is to create a registry file, and double click the file to import the settings into the registry.
Here is an example registry file.

REGEDIT4
"F:"="\\??\\D:\\Mount\\db"
"G:"="\\??\\D:\\Mount\\log"

After configuring the registry the computer must be rebooted for the changes to take effect.

Limitations