diff --git a/checkin_notes b/checkin_notes
index 95856561a9..f7982fdfd9 100644
--- a/checkin_notes
+++ b/checkin_notes
@@ -5364,3 +5364,13 @@ David  11 June 2009
     sched/
         start
         assimilator.py
+
+David  11 June 2009
+    - server: 'start' now looks for programs to execute in $PATH,
+        so the same set of binaries can be used to handle multiple projects.
+        <projectroot>/bin is always prepended to $PATH
+        to ensure that project-specific binaries always take precedence.
+        From Gabor Gombas.
+
+    sched/
+        start
diff --git a/sched/start b/sched/start
index c13ac9a385..2b9210fa5c 100755
--- a/sched/start
+++ b/sched/start
@@ -313,14 +313,12 @@ def contains_shell_characters(command):
 
 def exec_command_string(command):
     args = command.strip().split()
-    # set default path for program to <bin_dir>:
-    args[0] = os.path.realpath(os.path.join( bin_dir, args[0] ))
     os.chdir(tmp_dir)
     try:
         if contains_shell_characters(command):
             os.execl('/bin/sh', 'sh', '-c', ' '.join(args))
         else:
-            os.execv( args[0], args )
+            os.execvp( args[0], args )
         # on success we don't reach here
         print >>sys.stderr, "Couldn't exec '%s'"%command
     except OSError, e:
@@ -711,6 +709,11 @@ pid_dir = ensure_get_dir('pid_'+local_hostname)
 
 is_main_host = config.config.host == local_hostname
 
+if os.getenv('PATH'):
+    os.putenv('PATH', bin_dir + ':' + os.getenv('PATH'))
+else:
+    os.putenv('PATH', bin_dir)
+
 start_lockfile = os.path.join(pid_dir, 'start.lock.'+local_hostname)
 if lock_file(start_lockfile):
     print >>sys.stderr, "start is currently running!"