Associations to executable files in %path%

[j7n]

In Windows 2003 SP2 I cannot make an association to an executable file without specifying its full path. I have programs in "d:\apps", which has been added to the PATH variable. Some of them are referred to in associations. It is also not possible to run executables with *.sfx extension (WinRAR modules) to preview how they look, or save a module's name in a WinRAR preset without a path. Possibly other programs are affected in a similar way. When I call up a right-click menu that worked before on WinXP, the Open With dialog pops up instead.

FileMon shows that the program (such as flac.exe) is searched only in C:\WINNT\system32 and C:\WINNT .

This change smells very much like the "Safe DLL Loading" enforcement for NT6. However, that only changes the priority of directories, and both path and current directory are still searched. Can this feature be disabled?

%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;d:\apps;d:\plugins;d:\apps\sox;d:\apps\fhgaac;d:\apps\qaac;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\AGL

[jaclaz]

Likely you have some Group Policy settings that creates this behaviour?

jaclaz