INF: Why Microsoft Development Tools Use TMP Instead of TEMP

ID Number: Q74747

5.00 5.10 6.00 6.00a 6.00ax | 5.10 6.00 6.00a

MS-DOS | OS/2

Summary:

Microsoft programming languages and the utilities that are included in

their packages use an environment variable, TMP. This operating-system

environment variable is typically set in either the CONFIG.SYS file or

the startup batch file (AUTOEXEC.BAT for MS-DOS or STARTUP.CMD for

OS/2), and is assigned to the drive and directory that is to be used

for temporary file storage.

While Microsoft development tools use the TMP system variable,

Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Windows,

use a system variable, TEMP. The TEMP variable is also set to a drive

and directory that can be used by applications for temporary file

storage.

Microsoft has chosen to have programming languages and their utilities

use the TMP system variable and to have applications such as a word

processor use TEMP. The reason for this is that compilers and other

development tools generally use more temporary disk space, and

therefore, you may want to assign TMP to your hard disk. Applications

such as Microsoft Word generally use less temporary disk space, and

therefore, you can set TEMP equal to a small RAM drive.