Look at the following examples… Example 1: The following code DOESN’T use delayed expansion, so the variables in the for loop are expanded only one time. This means that %Count% will always expand to 0 in each iteration of the loop, no matter what we do to it with the set command: @echo off set … Read more
Preface Much of the information in this answer has been gathered based on experiments run on a Vista machine. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, I have not confirmed whether the information applies to other Windows versions. FINDSTR output The documentation never bothers to explain the output of FINDSTR. It alludes to the fact that matching lines … Read more
A) How does Windows command processor search for commands? Windows command processor searches for a COMMAND to execute which is not an internal command of cmd.exe and is just specified with file name without file extension and without path for a file matching the pattern command.* and having a file extension listed in local environment … Read more
See Windows Batch File (.bat) to get current date in MMDDYYYY format: @echo off For /f “tokens=2-4 delims=/ ” %%a in (‘date /t’) do (set mydate=%%c-%%a-%%b) For /f “tokens=1-2 delims=/:” %%a in (‘time /t’) do (set mytime=%%a%%b) echo %mydate%_%mytime% If you prefer the time in 24 hour/military format, you can replace the second FOR line … Read more
& between two commands simply results in executing both commands independent on result of first command. The command right of & is executed after command left of & finished independent on success or error of the previous command, i.e. independent on exit / return value of previous command. && results in a conditional execution of … Read more
Assigning a value/string to an environment variable It is best to use following syntax with command extensions enabled to define or modify an environment variable: set “var=text” The command is set and the parameter is “variable=value”. The parameter string can be enclosed in double quotes as on all commands as long as command extensions are … Read more
We performed experiments to investigate the grammar of batch scripts. We also investigated differences between batch and command line mode. Batch Line Parser: Here is a brief overview of phases in the batch file line parser: Phase 0) Read Line: Phase 1) Percent Expansion: Phase 2) Process special characters, tokenize, and build a cached command … Read more
Ok. I’ll try to be as clear as possible to not be misunderstood… In Windows Batch files a variable name should begin with a letter and may include any valid character, where valid characters are: #$'()*+,-.?@[]_`{}~ besides letters and digits. This means that from the cmd.exe point of view, SET NORMAL_NAME=123 is exactly the same … Read more
You are not the first, who fell into the famous “delayed expansion trap” (and you won’t be the last). You need delayed expansion if you want to use a variable, that you changed in the same block (a block is a series of commands within parentheses (and )). Delayed variables are referenced with !var! instead … Read more
Use the classes in the System.Printing namespace, for example: Local: Add-Type -AssemblyName “System.Printing” [System.Printing.LocalPrintServer]::GetDefaultPrintQueue() Or remote: Add-Type -AssemblyName “System.Printing” [System.Printing.PrintServer]::new(“\\$computerName”, [System.Printing.PrintSystemDesiredAccess]::AdministrateServer) You can also use the PrintManagement PowerShell module: Import-Module “PrintManagement” $printers = Get-Printer -ComputerName $computerName Get-PrintJob -ComputerName $computerName -PrinterName $printers[0].Name