Platinum Edition Using® Microsoft® Windows® XP

Batch Files

While Windows Script Host is the most powerful tool for creating your own helpful programs, it's also useful to know how to use the batch file language. Batch files let you take advantage of the hundreds of command-line programs supplied with Windows. While the batch file language is less powerful than VBScript, it has variables, primitive functions, and rudimentary flow-of-control commands, so it does qualify as a programming language.

A batch file, at the very simplest level, is just a list of command-prompt commands typed into a file whose extension is .BAT or .CMD. When you enter the name of a batch file at the command prompt, Windows looks for a file with this name in the current directory and in the folders of the search PATH ...