Execute NT batch files in Windows 95 and 98 with the
Win95Cmd
shell (now renamed
cmd-reactos)
(with thanks to Sture Lingden for mailing me these links after I lost track)
A real FRQ (Frequently Recurring Question) is about sending key
strokes to Windows GUI style programs. I'm sorry to tell you it
cannot be done in batch language itself!
But do not despair yet, Jonathan Bennett's
AutoIt
and Chris Mallett's
AutoHotkey
to the rescue...
Another FRQ is renaming log files with their date and time.
Have a look at
RenTS
by Kees Hiemstra, and
RealDate
by Gabor Funk.
Next in the FRQ charts is the question "is it possible to
hide the batch file's window?" Ritchie Lawrence's
commandline window utility for manipulating windows,
CMDOW,
makes it possible.
I don't know in which category this utility would fit, but let's say it will
give you command line control over your entire Windows system:
Comandiux or
CAX. More free tools
at Scot.sk
Microsoft's DEVCON command line utility
alternative to device manager is capable of installing, removing
or listing devices and drivers
Eject PnP hardware devices with C'T's
DevEject.
A powerful tool, which can eject devices by their description,
device ID or drive letter.
Use CPAU
to run commands in an alternate security context. Basically this is a RUNAS replacement.
BATCHMAN:
general purpose batch file enhancer, by Michael J. Mefford.
ANSI.COM:
ANSI.SYS replacement that can be loaded and unloaded in batch
files, by Michael J. Mefford
Make your batch files truly interactive with the
Wizard's
Apprentice, a flexible tool that can create any type of
dialog box you could ever wish for
Several
UNIX
utilities (cut, du, egrep, sed and many more) are now
available for Windows too
SEND.COM
is an enhanced ECHO replacement, allowing control characters
that could otherwise only be used by redirecting
PROMPT commands to
temporary batch files
XSET:
extended SET instruction, by Marc Stern
Everything you always wanted to put in an environment variable
but were afraid to ask DOS, Windows, NT or OS/2
for . . .
Norman
De Forest's
Computer
Hints, Tips, and Utilities page contains several batch file
utilities. Check out EKKO, an ECHO enhancement that can process
almost every PROMPT function including coloured text (even
without ANSI driver).
Frank Westlake's
Miscellaneous
Freeware for Windows or Windows NT, with amongst others TEE (both
redirect and display standard output simultaneously), PASTE (nice
complement to CLIP from the NT Resource Kit), RECYCLE (use the Recycle
Bin instead of permanent deletion) and POPUP (display messages in a popup
messagebox).
Sysinternals.com's
PsTools
include (amongst others) PsList and PsKill, meant to list
and kill processes on any PC in the NT network.
Extremely useful for killing noisy applications on
locked PCs ;-)
Beyond Logic's
Shutdown
for NT/2000/XP has several useful features that Microsoft's own
SHUTDOWN tools lack, like the option to prevent shutdown action
occurring on logged-on computers giving your users the flexibly
to run lengthy processes overnight without being disturbed
Gibson Research's
Wizmo
is a collection of tools integrated in a single package.
Among its functions are shutdown, reboot, hibernate and logoff.
Four batch file compilers:
BFC or
Batch File Compiler
by Brandon Dargo (also available in
Professional Edition),
Bat2Exec,
by Doug Boling,
BatLite,
by Pieter A. Hintjens,
PowerBatch.
by Computing Systems Design, Inc., and
Quick
Batch File Compiler by Abyssmedia.com. (Be aware, that compilers may not understand all the magic
you are performing in batch files. Use standard commands only,
if possible, and forget about undocumented DOS features.
BFC and QBFC offer both Win32 and DOS6 compilation and handle NT's extended
command switches very well, the others are for "real" DOS only.)
Use
ErrorLvl,
by OzWoz Software, or
SetErLev 1.0,
by Jim Elliott, to test batch files that need to check on
errorlevels.
John R. Souvestre's
SLEEP
can be used to wait for a relative or absolute time.
A collection of batch file
utilities
by Ctrl Computer Systems.
SavillTech's
CmdInfo
displays system information for Windows 32 systems
For those who do not want to spend a lot of time making their
date or time dependent batch files language independent, there is
ErrTime,
by Phil Money, Advantig
Engineering & Design.
Separate executables are available for DOS, OS/2, NT and Novell
Netware (NLM). ErrTime
returns an errorlevel for hour, minute, day of week, year, etcetera,
depending on the command line parameter specified. You'll have to
add Y2K compliance to your batch files by yourself, though, since
there aren't enough DOS error levels to make the year a four digit
number.
Problems with XP assigning drive letters, that are in use by network drives, to USB drives?
Use USB Drive
Letter Manager to fix them.
ResHack
(RESource HACKer) is a great tool to extract bitmaps from
executables and DLLs, remove menu entries, change button
captions and much more...
RegShot, a tool
that allows taking registry and file "snapshots" and comparing these.
Great for automating software installations. Do read the tips on the RegShot web page for better results!
Try
Bulk
Rename if you need to do some complex renaming
12noon.com has several
great utilities available for free, like Resolution Changer
(change display resolution from the command line) and MouseButtons
(swap mouse buttons for left handed use, and back to right handed
use again)
Use Microsoft's
TweakUI
to change Windows' behaviour without directly "hacking" your registry
Use Microsoft's
Autoplay
Repair Wizard to to fix defective AutoPlay settings for CD-ROM drives