Puzzling out why a program doesn’t work when run from a batch file, but works when double-clicked from Explorer

This article discusses a common issue where a program fails to run correctly from a batch file due to the current directory not being set properly. It explains how double-clicking a program in Explorer sets the current directory, which can affect how the program locates ancillary files.

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A customer asked for help writing a batch file to launch a program. For some reason, the program displayed an error message when the batch file ran it, whereas it worked fine when they double-clicked the program from Explorer.

I immediately suspected that they were not setting the current directory.

Some time ago, I noted that when you double-click a file in Explorer, Explorer sets the current directory of the program to the directory containing the thing that you double-clicked . This is done to accomodate programs that look for ancillary files in the current directory. The example I had was a hypothetical LitWare Writer program that, when given an ABC.LIT file, looks for related files like ABC.LTC (the table of contents) and ABC.LDC (the custom dictionary) in the current directory.

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