I'm looking for a method which would allow me to automatically open a modified file in windows. In other words, something running in the background which detects changes in a given set of files; such that when one is detected, the file is opened. I attempted writing a batch file which saves the last modified date and time to a text file and repeatedly checks that. I think this method works, but I didn't know if there's a better way out there.
My motivation is that I'm scp'ing files regularly from a linux machine to windows, and it would be neat if they just opened automatically on my windows machine after updating locally.
Is their a way to zip a file without VB Script.I got a lot of examples on web to zip file or folder using vbs but i want to do it in a single BAT file.
Yes and no. There is no built in way to do this inside windows. You can use a external application like vbscript, a exe file like 7zip, rar, lots of resources can do this. Since windows is application poor when it comes to command lines is not really surprising. But no you do not need the VB Script for anything.
Just not so easy out of the box. Maybe makecab could do it for you? As a general rule you have a hard constraint in your question. A single BAT file which in general can not do almost anything without the support of hundreds of preinstalled or commonly installed other applications.
Could you specify a the constraints a bit better. Tel WHY you need this particular constraint? And what does it mean as even most of the bat command you use require more than one file.
I've written a batch file script that takes an image sequence from a certain folder, converts it to quicktime using ffmpeg and then it moves the file to a certain folder.
I used variables at the beginning of the batch script for user input on which folder to take the files from.
And now for my question: The batch I've written works just fine but I want to make it into a simple visual basic script so it looks nice and clean instead of a command prompt interface.
Can anyone provide me with tips for the VB code?
How do I pass variables from VB to the batch file?
Any help on this would be much appriciated.
Use a HTML Application to program the GUI to gather the info needed from the user. Use WScript.Shell's .Run or .Exec method to start an external process (either the .bat or ffmpeg directly) and pass those info via the command line.
What is the difference between the a.bat, a.com and a.exe extensions?
Originally, a .COM file was a literal blob of 8086 code (that is, 16-bit x86). It is meant to be loaded at a fixed address, and the loader would jump straight to the first byte of its address. It's also limited in size.
An .EXE file has more header information. So it has required structures for things like dynamic linking, where code from a DLL can be patched into the .EXE's memory space at load time.. It originally comes from DOS, but it's today used in Windows.
However DOS and Windows eventually went to a model where the file extension in a .COM and .EXE didn't mean anything. The program loader first checks the first two bytes of the file. If it happens to be the string MZ (legend has it this stands for the initials of an early Microsoft employee), it will treat it as an EXE, otherwise it will load it as if it were a COM file. Since MZ doesn't map to a sensible x86 instruction to start a program, they can get away with this. Net effect: In some versions of DOS/Windows, an .EXE can be named with .COM and vice versa. For example, in many versions of DOS/Windows, the famous COMMAND.COM was actually an EXE.
I am not sure how much the previous paragraph applies to NT based versions of Windows. I'd imagine by now they've abandoned the .COM stuff altogether.
Lastly, a .BAT file is a list of commands to be executed as if you typed them at your command prompt. However these days most people name them as .CMD.
.bat is a batch file. It is interpreted.
.exe is a regular executable program file.
A .com file, at least for MS-DOS, has many meta-data missing and is loaded into a specific offset in the main memory. It is smaller than .exe
I assume you mean for Windows?
"a.bat" is supposed to be a batch file, the Windows/DOS equivalent of a script file.
"a.com" and "a.exe" are supposed to be equivalent these days. However, back in the Windows 3.x days, a "com" file was a DOS executable, where an "exe" file was a portable executable, or a Windows-based executable. This is a gotcha these days, as files in the format "www.example.com" can exist on your hard drive, and many people mistake such a file for a web link. Even worse, Windows typically tries executing "com" files before "exe" files.
A bat(ch) file is a script that is executed by the command interpretor.
A exe file is compiled binary code to be executed directly on the cpu.
A com file is a relic from the past to create a small exe.
.BAT - Batch File: list of commands (basically a text file with command-line commands)
.COM - DOS Executable loaded into a fixed block of memory (stems back from before multi-tasking)
.EXE - Executable file - standard application on the Windows platform
While EXE and BAT files often serve a similar purpose, they use completely different file formats. Both file types can be used for creating executable content in Windows, but BAT files are limited in the commands they can perform. Since BAT files contain human-readable text, they can be easily edited and therefore are often used for custom scripting tasks. EXE files, on the other hand, contain complex binary data that is built using a compiler. Since EXE files support more complex commands than BAT files, most Windows applications are saved in the EXE format.
I was also looking for the same query and found something that have pasted here.
Please refer the below link, you will find it useful, it perfectly answers your question:
Difference between .BAT and .EXE
Actually, .com and .exe are both binary executable files, whereas .bat is basically a batch file. Now suppose you have got many files with the same name, but different extensions.
For instance, a.com, a.exe and if you are running through the command prompt file a. It will first execute a.com (only if it exists), else it will run a.exe. Or say a.exe is also not there then it will look for a.bat execution.
A .BAT (short for "batch") file is a plain text file that contains a
series of Windows commands.
An .EXE (short for "executable") file is a binary file that contains
much more complex executable binary code.
A .COM file was a DOS executable and nowadays its same as .EXE.
.bat file effects directly on the performance of CPU.
While, the .exe file will be compiled by interpreter and then executed on CPU.
I've got a pretty stubborn executable that I would like to execute sequentially multiple times from within a Dos batch file. (Due to IT constrains currently constrained to using Dos batch files.)
I am able to use START to launch the executable, however, it seems the executable is expecting the user to hit return prior to "really" running/executing.
In a DOS Batch script is there anyway work with an executable that is expecting the user to hit return prior to running? I would like for the "return" to be in the script and not have to actually click on the window and manually hit return.
Thank you for any feedback provided.
P.S. Figured out that /wait option in START so that the next execution will start right up once the first one is finished and so on, but having trouble figuring out how to input a "return".
You can use
echo.|DoStuff.exe
provided your executable is a console program.
You can pipe the input from other file, for example,
Write a text file with one carriage return and call it like..
start "YourExe.exe < text.txt",