[techpro5238]

Originally Posted by mattew

well those are very basic commands ....
well one thing
when i wanted to chang my directory path from c:/> to
c:\windows\temp
i just wrote in the batch file
cd windows
cd temp


when i excecuted it it navigated to windows but failed to navigate to temp folder i didnt get why is that so.....?

Originally Posted by Chris Chadwick

Can you make a .bat file run things like chkdsk an other windows commands?

Chris, yes you can do that. Just direct it over to the System32 folder.

Check your spellings a bit more, and try the exact path too.

[mattew]

well i have checked the spelling and everything is correct but i dont know why its happening like this......
please guide me......!

[MrCoffee]

Its very easy, when you're using dos commands like "cd" in a batch file you can test wether it's going to work or not by first trying it out at the command line youself.

With cd in particular you'll find you can't just "cd" to any directory, its got to be within the current folder or you've got to supply a whole path string.

e.g.

cd windows

will only work if you are at "c:\" on the command line, but

cd c:\windows

will work from any where provided you're on the same drive. (you can't cd to a directory on another drive)

also if there is a space in the path string you need to put the string in quotes e.g.

cd "c:\program files\program"

So your batch file to change directory could look like this:

c:
cd c:\windows\temp

[mattew]

well when i just type those commands on the dos screen directly it does exactly as i want it to....
but when i do so in the batch i dunno but something goes wrong and it just navigates to windows but not to temp.....
dunno wat to do...

[MrCoffee]

There's a couple of possibilties that spring to mind but it depends on what "dos" you're using and how you're judging that it hasn't changed to the temp directory.

If I remember rightly (and this just might be me getting confused with unix shell) but if you don't put a carriage return at the end of the file in some versions of DOS then the last line of the batch file will not be executed.

Secondly, under some variants of the dos CLI a batchfile will change dir only for the duration of the runtime of the batch file, and although you will see the command "cd temp" echo to the prompt you wont actually see that directory before the execution finishes and you're taken back to the location you ran the batchfile from.

I suggest you try this batch file:

c:
cd windows
cd temp
pause

That should definately work, if not then you have something screwy.

[mattew]

well that pause one woked but only till the excecution of the batc file and again it reverted back...
is there ne other ingenious way to do it......

[MrCoffee]

Ah, thought so. What "dos" are you using exactly? i.e. what OS and how are you launching dos?

if you're in XP don't use "command" but rather "cmd", "command" if I remember rightly is provided for backwards compatibility with 9x.

If you're not sure which you're using then type this at the prompt:

echo %comspec%

That should tell you which command interpreter you're using. (although you can invoke "command" from within cmd.exe by typing "command" at the prompt, however to actually switch to command.com you'd need to type "start command").

[mattew]

well dude got it u were right when i typed the same thing using the cmd things worked...
well wat is the difference between cmd on run and command on rum..
apparently both look same ......

[MrCoffee]

CMD.EXE is the Microsoft Windows NT command line shell and is more compatible and portable between different hardware platforms when compared to the original COMMAND.COM, which has been used as the command interpreter with DOS for several years. COMMAND.COM is included for backwards compatibility and is recommended that it be used when old MS-DOS programs may not be able to be run in Windows NT.

COMMAND isn't intended to be used for batchfiles under XP but rather only for backwards compatibility, they look similar but you will find many differences. Some of the immediately obvious ones are the path strings - in CMD the full path is used and in command the old dos style path is used e.g. c:\progra~1\ rather than c:\program files\
So under CMD you would

CD "program files"

and under COMMAND you would

CD progra~1

also CMD has a builtin version of doskey, so you can use the arrow keys to scroll through your command line history but under command you would have to launch the separate doskey program for that functionality.

In short just use CMD unless you have a specific reason to use COMMAND i.e. an old program or batchfile from a previous MS OS.

[mattew]

well that's cool.....
so there r different versions in dos too ...
so can u update dos separately .. i mean ne other packages for superior performance....