I apologize for the crudeness of this help file; it may not be snazzy, but hopefully it will give you all the information you need.
subDrive creates 'aliased' drives. What this basically means is that it sets a path (such as C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Pictures\) to a drive letter (Such as P:). This makes it easier to access commonly-used folders much easier, simply by opening a drive rather than navigating deep through the system for a specific folder.
This program, due to it's nature, is very limited. It is basically a front-end to an old program called 'subst.exe'. Therefore, subDrive is unable to do anything beyond the power of the subst utility.
In addition, this program shows very few error messages; in other words, to find out if the operation worked, you have to manually check in My Computer for the newly-created drive. I apologize for this, and hopefully will be able to impliment some such error system in the future.
This problem, however, is only when creating the drives; 'Solidified' drives, on the other hand, are processed within the subDrive program, and involve adding a file to your Startup folder (specified in the Options) that will execute the aliasing process every time the computer is started.
The program should have included an installer. The 'complete' installer includes all VB6 runtimes, which should be included with Windows 98 and higher. The much smaller, 'minimum' installer, contains only the subDrive program; if you have any errors running it, download the 'complete' installer for all dependent files. In addition, a non-installing, zip version is included for those who don't like installers. Also, the complete VB6 source, in tar.gz files, are available on the website (if this means nothing to you, then you are welcome to ignore such files).
Please note: the subst.exe file that is required for this program is NOT included in any version; it is part of Windows, and should already be on your computer; in addition, it needs to be in your 'path', which should already be done for you. I will NOT distribute this file, as it is not mine; it is a Microsoft product, and therefore not my program to distribute.
To uninstall, either run the included uninstaller, or delete the directory the program was placed in. subDrive creates no registry entries or places files all across your harddrive (with the exception of the installers, which may place arbitrary components that are not created by me in other places); simply remove the whole folder, including the .exe and .ini files, and the program is completely removed!
The first time the program is run, the startup folder will need to be specified in the 'Options' window. This should be set to your startup folder, commonly in one of these locations (substitute C: for your Windows drive):
After setting up your startup folder, simply select a drive in the left-hand pane, and the folder that drive should point to in the right-hand pane; at the top is a box of every current drive on the system, if the folder you want to alias is not on the C: drive.
To remove an aliased drive, select the drive letter on the left and click 'remove'. The folder dialog is not used for this option, and can be ignored.
As explained above, the 'Solidify' option is for creating semi-permament versions of the aliased drives. To use it, select the folder and drive letter exactly like creating a new drive; however, instead of clicking 'Add', choose 'Solidify' instead. This adds the current alias to the startup list. Please note that these cannot be removed once added; however, the 'Remove All' button in 'Options' clears all subDrive aliases (unless the Solidified aliases have been created in more than one location; in which case, the correct folder must be selected in the options window, and the 'OK' button pressed to set a new folder).
I have many things on the drawing board for this program. The most important item, of course, is to fix any problems that may arise with this, the initial release, including better error reporting. However, in the future I hope to impliment mounting not only folders, but disk images as well (such as .iso files for CDs, and .img files for various other disks). However, this will require much reworking in the program, and is therefore subject to my capabilities.
subDrive is licensed under the GPL; it should be contained in the LICENSE.TXT file included with the program. Basically, this license grants you the freedom to use this program as you see fit, provided my name is still included as the original creator. In additon, full VB6 source is freely available from the homepage.
In addition, the subst.exe program was not created by me; it is (was?) a product of Microsoft, and therefore should be treated as such.
Doug Burkhalter (or anyone else related to the creation and distribution of this software) shall not be held responsible to any problems that may arise related to this program. You use it at your OWN risk, and therefore are liable for any issues arising from the use of this program. However, if you would like to contact me explaining the problem, in the hopes that I can offer a repair, you can do so with the e-mail address available at the homepage (I don't list my e-mail here for various reasons, not the least of which being the fact that it will inevitably be different at some future point).
Uhh...uhh...Piggies!
The subDrive program, this help file, and the related Web site are all © Copyright 2004 Doug Burkhalter. None of them may be replicated without proper reference to the original creator. In addition, portions of this program are © Copyright Microsoft, including the subst.exe program and the basic controls of the VB6 library, used within this program.