RE: OS independent way to specify location of .emacs.d directory

["Ludwig, Mark" <ludwig.mark@siemens.com>]

> From: Eli Zaretskii
> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 1:00 AM
> 
> > From: "Ludwig, Mark" <ludwig.mark@siemens.com>
> > Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 21:04:25 +0000
> >
> > You can even use forward slashes as file path arguments to some
> > external commands in command shells.  You can never use them in internal
> commands.
> 
> Not entirely true, the last sentence.  Many commands internal to cmd.exe will
> accept file names with forward slashes, especially if they are quoted.  E.g., 'cd'
> accepts them even without quotes.

Thanks for pointing to this.  I know I've had problems before with CD, and it's apparently improved in later releases.  For example, in Windows 7, forward slashes appear to work consistently.  
In WinXP, for another example, it has some subtlety.  (It appears that leading slashes can sometimes be forward, and quoting doesn't seem to help.)  Here's a transcript from WinXP:

=============================================================================== 
D:\>cd /scratch

D:\Scratch>cd /scratch
The system cannot find the path specified.

D:\Scratch>cd /

D:\Scratch>cd \

D:\>cd /scratch/mrl

D:\Scratch\mrl>cd /scratch/mrl
The system cannot find the path specified.

D:\Scratch\mrl>cd \scratch/mrl

D:\Scratch\mrl>cd \

D:\>cd scratch/mrl

D:\Scratch\mrl>cd ..

D:\Scratch>cd ./mrl

D:\Scratch\mrl>cd "/scratch/mrl"
The system cannot find the path specified.

D:\Scratch\mrl>
===============================================================================

Cheers,
Mark