Bill,

Don't know specifically about XP but i run it regularly in WIN2000 (and isn't XP 2000 in drag?)

i make icons for DOS Session which include starting a command interpreter for the session which call a bat file which includes the stuff i need like DOSKEY, Path Statements, editor or assembly directives (this is shown as bat_file_for_session):

%windir%System32cmd.exe /k C:bat_file_for_session 

regards,
p