General solutions

Ways I've accomplished this historically:

• make a .bat in C:\Windows\ that sets the correct working directory and launches the desired .exe (this is the solution that the stock Vim installer uses on Windows)
  • downside: slower, causes visual flicker
  • note: presumably Vim chooses this option because it's cross-compatible, even on much older versions of Windows. However, I rarely/never use versions of Windows older than XP, so this solution isn't needed for me.
• copy the .exe from its normal installed directory into C:\Windows\, and hope it continues to function
  • works fine with: gvim.exe, procexp.exe, putty.exe, etc
  • downsides: leaves litter in C:\Windows\; sometimes causes confusion since apps start with a different working directory than normal
• make a shortcut to the app in C:\Windows\
  • upside: fixes the working-directory problem, so all apps should work fine
  • downside: still litters C:\Windows\
  • downside: shortcuts DO "fix" the working-directory problem, but often you CLEARLY DON'T want the problem fixed — if you specify a relative path on the command-line, for the application to act on, then changing the working-directory will cause this relative-path to be completely wrong
  • NOTE: if you just put the shortcut in C:\Windows\, it will only work from Windows+R.
    • to get it to ALSO work from the command-line, you need to modify the environment variable %PATHEXT% to include ".lnk"
• mkdir C:\Windows\Dee_Path\; put shortcuts there; change the path to include that directory
  • upside: clearly separates any "litter"

Specific programs

• vim
  • the shortcut trick above is no good — it prevents you from using relative paths when specifying which file to edit
  • instead:
    1. copy the entire gvim.exe to the desired directory
    2. create the environment variable VIMRUNTIME to point to the proper directory (you can test that you've got this working correctly, by seeing it come up with the full menu structure)
• copy these .exes directly
  • the shortcut trick above is no good — it prevents you from using relative paths when specifying which file to edit
  • .exes which work better copied verbatim include:
    • Putty's pscp.exe