I have a Unix shell script which will kill any process that is accessing a folder:
fuser -k ..\logs\*
Is there a Windows batch script equivalent to this? I am aware of TASKKILL but I'm not sure if it will do what I need. Does anyone know if this is possible with Windows shell?
Not with built-in tools (there is nothing that can enumerate handles), but you can use the Sysinternals Handle tool to get a list of the PIDs that have open handles on a file. You can then parse the output with FOR /F and use TASKKILL to end the processes.
Example:
for /f "skip=4 tokens=3" %i in ('handle ..\logs\') do taskkill /pid %i
skip=4 skips the copyright information in Handle's output and tokens=3 picks out the PID from each line of output. The rest are self-explanatory.
I found a fuser for Windows. Check this link to Sourceforge:
Many would ask, "why not use handle.exe from SysInternals?"
While being a truly excellent utility (as all of SysInternals stuff
is), it falls short -- at least for me -- for a couple of reasons:
It does filename pattern matching. I need it to do exact file matches with partial input. For example, when I'm in the C:\TMP directory, and I'm checking on a file named out.dat, I want it to see if the file C:\TMP\OUT.DAT is being used without having to type full path in. I think even if you type in the full path for handle.exe, it will still do pattern matching.
handle.exe seems to always exit 0. For scripting purposes, I need
it to exit 1 if the file is not being used, but 0 if it is. This is
very useful in scripts.
Related
So, for Windows 2000, I'm making kind of a program spammer thing. There is another batch file, that, at the end, calls in the program spammer file. The problem I'm having is adding it saying "to many command-line parameters". This is the current code I have to add it to startup.
reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run /v begin-second /t REG_SZ /f /d C:\Documents and Settings\%LOCALUSER%\Desktop\bat script\begin-second.bat
The rest of the script consists of lines like this:
start <EXE file in system32 or WINNT openable by Run>
And there are a few of these "ping" commands serving as a pause in the program for a selectable amount of time:
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 1000>nul
Can somebody help me here? The code to add it to the startup throug the registry probably has something wrong with it. When I launch the .bat file, it just spams the programs. I have Registry Editor open, but nothing changes in this directory, the same one the command uses to write the SZ key to the registry, at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
I'm kind of a person learning Batch, so it's pretty obvious why I'm having issues. I'm not experienced enough. What I'm looking for is a workaround, or something to fix this "to many parameters" thing. Also, remember, I'm programming this in Windows 2000.
You need to put your data (after the /d) in quotes, or else it will interpret the spaces in the filename as separators between different parameters.
I am a beginner in VBScript. I googled it & got to know that we can run VBScript from command line by executing below command:
For Example my vbscript name is Converter.vbs & it's present in folder D:\VBS.
I can run it through following methods:
CScript "D:\VBS\Converter.vbs"
OR
WScript "D:\VBS\Converter.vbs"
Now I would like to execute above VBScript without Cscript or Wscript command by simply typing the name of VBscript name i.e. Converter.
I DON'T WANT TO SPECIFY THE FULL PATH OF VBSCRIPT EVERYTIME.
Can anyone please guide me on how to do that ?
I'll break this down in to several distinct parts, as each part can be done individually. (I see the similar answer, but I'm going to give a more detailed explanation here..)
First part, in order to avoid typing "CScript" (or "WScript"), you need to tell Windows how to launch a * .vbs script file. In My Windows 8 (I cannot be sure all these commands work exactly as shown here in older Windows, but the process is the same, even if you have to change the commands slightly), launch a console window (aka "command prompt", or aka [incorrectly] "dos prompt") and type "assoc .vbs". That should result in a response such as:
C:\Windows\System32>assoc .vbs
.vbs=VBSFile
Using that, you then type "ftype VBSFile", which should result in a response of:
C:\Windows\System32>ftype VBSFile
vbsfile="%SystemRoot%\System32\WScript.exe" "%1" %*
-OR-
C:\Windows\System32>ftype VBSFile
vbsfile="%SystemRoot%\System32\CScript.exe" "%1" %*
If these two are already defined as above, your Windows' is already set up to know how to launch a * .vbs file. (BTW, WScript and CScript are the same program, using different names. WScript launches the script as if it were a GUI program, and CScript launches it as if it were a command line program. See other sites and/or documentation for these details and caveats.)
If either of the commands did not respond as above (or similar responses, if the file type reported by assoc and/or the command executed as reported by ftype have different names or locations), you can enter them yourself:
C:\Windows\System32>assoc .vbs=VBSFile
-and/or-
C:\Windows\System32>ftype vbsfile="%SystemRoot%\System32\WScript.exe" "%1" %*
You can also type "help assoc" or "help ftype" for additional information on these commands, which are often handy when you want to automatically run certain programs by simply typing a filename with a specific extension. (Be careful though, as some file extensions are specially set up by Windows or programs you may have installed so they operate correctly. Always check the currently assigned values reported by assoc/ftype and save them in a text file somewhere in case you have to restore them.)
Second part, avoiding typing the file extension when typing the command from the console window.. Understanding how Windows (and the CMD.EXE program) finds commands you type is useful for this (and the next) part. When you type a command, let's use "querty" as an example command, the system will first try to find the command in it's internal list of commands (via settings in the Windows' registry for the system itself, or programmed in in the case of CMD.EXE). Since there is no such command, it will then try to find the command in the current %PATH% environment variable. In older versions of DOS/Windows, CMD.EXE (and/or COMMAND.COM) would automatically add the file extensions ".bat", ".exe", ".com" and possibly ".cmd" to the command name you typed, unless you explicitly typed an extension (such as "querty.bat" to avoid running "querty.exe" by mistake). In more modern Windows, it will try the extensions listed in the %PATHEXT% environment variable. So all you have to do is add .vbs to %PATHEXT%. For example, here's my %PATHEXT%:
C:\Windows\System32>set pathext
PATHEXT=.PLX;.PLW;.PL;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.COM;.EXE;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.PY
Notice that the extensions MUST include the ".", are separated by ";", and that .VBS is listed AFTER .CMD, but BEFORE .COM. This means that if the command processor (CMD.EXE) finds more than one match, it'll use the first one listed. That is, if I have query.cmd, querty.vbs and querty.com, it'll use querty.cmd.
Now, if you want to do this all the time without having to keep setting %PATHEXT%, you'll have to modify the system environment. Typing it in a console window only changes it for that console window session. I'll leave this process as an exercise for the reader. :-P
Third part, getting the script to run without always typing the full path. This part, in relation to the second part, has been around since the days of DOS. Simply make sure the file is in one of the directories (folders, for you Windows' folk!) listed in the %PATH% environment variable. My suggestion is to make your own directory to store various files and programs you create or use often from the console window/command prompt (that is, don't worry about doing this for programs you run from the start menu or any other method.. only the console window. Don't mess with programs that are installed by Windows or an automated installer unless you know what you're doing).
Personally, I always create a "C:\sys\bat" directory for batch files, a "C:\sys\bin" directory for * .exe and * .com files (for example, if you download something like "md5sum", a MD5 checksum utility), a "C:\sys\wsh" directory for VBScripts (and JScripts, named "wsh" because both are executed using the "Windows Scripting Host", or "wsh" program), and so on. I then add these to my system %PATH% variable (Control Panel -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced tab -> Environment Variables button), so Windows can always find them when I type them.
Combining all three parts will result in configuring your Windows system so that anywhere you can type in a command-line command, you can launch your VBScript by just typing it's base file name. You can do the same for just about any file type/extension; As you probably saw in my %PATHEXT% output, my system is set up to run Perl scripts (.PLX;.PLW;.PL) and Python (.PY) scripts as well. (I also put "C:\sys\bat;C:\sys\scripts;C:\sys\wsh;C:\sys\bin" at the front of my %PATH%, and put various batch files, script files, et cetera, in these directories, so Windows can always find them. This is also handy if you want to "override" some commands: Putting the * .bat files first in the path makes the system find them before the * .exe files, for example, and then the * .bat file can launch the actual program by giving the full path to the actual *. exe file. Check out the various sites on "batch file programming" for details and other examples of the power of the command line.. It isn't dead yet!)
One final note: DO check out some of the other sites for various warnings and caveats. This question posed a script named "converter.vbs", which is dangerously close to the command "convert.exe", which is a Windows program to convert your hard drive from a FAT file system to a NTFS file system.. Something that can clobber your hard drive if you make a typing mistake!
On the other hand, using the above techniques you can insulate yourself from such mistakes, too. Using CONVERT.EXE as an example.. Rename it to something like "REAL_CONVERT.EXE", then create a file like "C:\sys\bat\convert.bat" which contains:
#ECHO OFF
ECHO !DANGER! !DANGER! !DANGER! !DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
ECHO This command will convert your hard drive to NTFS! DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS?!
ECHO PRESS CONTROL-C TO ABORT, otherwise..
REM "PAUSE" will pause the batch file with the message "Press any key to continue...",
REM and also allow the user to press CONTROL-C which will prompt the user to abort or
REM continue running the batch file.
PAUSE
ECHO Okay, if you're really determined to do this, type this command:
ECHO. %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\REAL_CONVERT.EXE
ECHO to run the real CONVERT.EXE program. Have a nice day!
You can also use CHOICE.EXE in modern Windows to make the user type "y" or "n" if they really want to continue, and so on.. Again, the power of batch (and scripting) files!
Here's some links to some good resources on how to use all this power:
http://ss64.com/
http://www.computerhope.com/batch.htm
http://commandwindows.com/batch.htm
http://www.robvanderwoude.com/batchfiles.php
Most of these sites are geared towards batch files, but most of the information in them applies to running any kind of batch (* .bat) file, command (* .cmd) file, and scripting (* .vbs, * .js, * .pl, * .py, and so on) files.
When entering the script's full file spec or its filename on the command line, the shell will use information accessibly by
assoc | grep -i vbs
.vbs=VBSFile
ftype | grep -i vbs
VBSFile=%SystemRoot%\System32\CScript.exe "%1" %*
to decide which program to run for the script. In my case it's cscript.exe, in yours it will be wscript.exe - that explains why your WScript.Echos result in MsgBoxes.
As
cscript /?
Usage: CScript scriptname.extension [option...] [arguments...]
Options:
//B Batch mode: Suppresses script errors and prompts from displaying
//D Enable Active Debugging
//E:engine Use engine for executing script
//H:CScript Changes the default script host to CScript.exe
//H:WScript Changes the default script host to WScript.exe (default)
//I Interactive mode (default, opposite of //B)
//Job:xxxx Execute a WSF job
//Logo Display logo (default)
//Nologo Prevent logo display: No banner will be shown at execution time
//S Save current command line options for this user
//T:nn Time out in seconds: Maximum time a script is permitted to run
//X Execute script in debugger
//U Use Unicode for redirected I/O from the console
shows, you can use //E and //S to permanently switch your default host to cscript.exe.
If you are so lazy that you don't even want to type the extension, make sure that the PATHEXT environment variable
set | grep -i vbs
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.py;.pyw;.tcl;.PSC1
contains .VBS and there is no Converter.cmd (that converts your harddisk into a washing machine) in your path.
Update wrt comment:
If you 'don't want to specify the full path of my vbscript everytime' you may:
put your CONVERTER.VBS in a folder that is included in the PATH environment variable; the shell will then search all pathes - if necessary taking the PATHEXT and the ftype/assoc info into account - for a matching 'executable'.
put a CONVERTER.BAT/.CMD into a path directory that contains a line like cscript p:\ath\to\CONVERTER.VBS
In both cases I would type out the extension to avoid (nasty) surprises.
I am wondering why you cannot put this in a batch file. Example:
cd D:\VBS\
WSCript Converter.vbs
Put the above code in a text file and save the text file with .bat extension. Now you have to simply run this .bat file.
Why don't you just stash the vbscript in a batch/vbscript file hybrid. Name the batch hybrid Converter.bat and you can execute it directly as Converter from the cmd line. Sure you can default ALL scripts to run from Cscript or Wscript, but if you want to execute your vbs as a windows script rather than a console script, this could cause some confusion later on. So just set your code to a batch file and run it directly.
Check the answer -> Here
And here is an example:
Converter.bat
::' VBS/Batch Hybrid
::' --- Batch portion ---------
rem^ &#echo off
rem^ &call :'sub
rem^ &exit /b
:'sub
rem^ &echo begin batch
rem^ &cscript //nologo //e:vbscript "%~f0"
rem^ &echo end batch
rem^ &exit /b
'----- VBS portion -----
Dim tester
tester = "Convert data here"
Msgbox tester
You may follow the following steps:
Open your CMD(Command Prompt)
Type 'D:' and hit Enter. Example: C:\Users\[Your User Name]>D:
Type 'CD VBS' and hit Enter. Example: D:>CD VBS
Type 'Converter.vbs' or 'start Converter.vbs' and hit Enter. Example: D:\VBS>Converter.vbs Or D:\VBS>start Converter.vbs
In the Windows command shell, cmd, is there a way to C:> dir /s but only to n sub directories?
Seems to me that I have made this work in the past, though I may have corrupted that sector in my brain with certain cell damaging liquids... :P
I guess I could redirect the output into a log and then skim it with findstr or qgerp but it seems like there should be a cleaner way.
"Cleaner way"? With DOS commands like "dir"? You've got a dry sense of humor, there ;)
You can do a "dos /?" to query available options. "limit recursion to 'n' directores with /s" is definitely not one of them.
If you want to do that, you'd need to write your own program ... or redirect to a text file and parse the file.
What is that one not usually known command in unix and windows that you know?
It is heard that windows contains several hidden applications which sometimes
may be very useful.
linux:
history (history of command line)
mogrify (for all image needs/operations)
screen (for running programs after logging off via ssh)
In widows XP if you have ever tried to do somthing like this
cd \\pc\c$
You will have recieved the error
CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories.
Well you can use UNC paths as long as you map them to a temp drive letter like so.
pushd \\pc\c$
Then when you want to return simply...
popd
Windows:
fdisk /mbr
Saved my life (and system) after a Linux partition went berserk.
Linux:
strace
Came handy getting passwords with classmates running a telnet from a shell I was logged in ;-)
I'm not sure if this counts as unknown, but rsync is invaluable.
In older versions of Windows (XP, in particular), I found the shutdown command invaluable. For example:
shutdown /s /t 3600
will shut down the computer in an hour. Linux, of course, has a similar command (I'd say the majority of Linux users are intimately familiar with "shutdown -h now"), but the Windows equivalent is less well known.
The reason I mentioned older versions of Windows is that in newer ones (Vista I know for sure, don't know about Windows Server 200x) the functionality of shutdown has been hobbled a bit. For example, you can only set a maximum wait time of ten minutes, which makes it useless if you want your computer to shut down in an hour or two, when a download is done.
The hosts file can be used to filter online advertising.
In bash's ~/.bashrc file:
set -o vi
and in ~/.inputrc
set editing-mode vi
set keymap vi
Also, Using !$ to avoid retyping:
ls long/dir/name/i/dont/want/to/repeat/file.txt
rm !$
In Unix: apropos (rough idea of what you want) | less
On Windows XP+:
fsutil, the file system utility. I use this when I have to create test files of a specific size (fsutil file createnew <filename> <length>).
netstat, Displays protocol statistics and current TCP/IP network connections.
netsh, the network services shell; command line hook into all sorts of network info.
reg, the registry shell, for working with the registry from the command line.
on windows i used to like gpedit.msc but i think its only on certain versions of xp
and regedit of course
mmc.exe
you can do amazing things with the bare-bone version of the management console, given admin access to some machines in a network.
In PowerShell, you can:
cd \\server\c$\
In Windows, I use SET alot to get the basic information of the computer easily. There's also: IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS, IPCONFIG /REGISTERDNS (to clear and reload dns entries), TRACERT (used to trace a path between your location and another on the network/internet), NETSTAT -s -p tcp (for network statistics), and PATHPING (like ping but better!)
I find that findstr is relatively unknown, at least I didn't know about it. It's a rough equivalent to grep, nice when you're not necessarily wanting or needing to install something like mingw or cygwin or even a natively built grep.
c:\Users\logan>findstr /?
Searches for strings in files.
FINDSTR [/B] [/E] [/L] [/R] [/S] [/I] [/X] [/V] [/N] [/M] [/O] [/P] [/F:file]
[/C:string] [/G:file] [/D:dir list] [/A:color attributes] [/OFF[LINE]]
strings [[drive:][path]filename[ ...]]
/B Matches pattern if at the beginning of a line.
/E Matches pattern if at the end of a line.
/L Uses search strings literally.
/R Uses search strings as regular expressions.
/S Searches for matching files in the current directory and all
subdirectories.
/I Specifies that the search is not to be case-sensitive.
/X Prints lines that match exactly.
/V Prints only lines that do not contain a match.
/N Prints the line number before each line that matches.
/M Prints only the filename if a file contains a match.
/O Prints character offset before each matching line.
/P Skip files with non-printable characters.
/OFF[LINE] Do not skip files with offline attribute set.
/A:attr Specifies color attribute with two hex digits. See "color /?"
/F:file Reads file list from the specified file(/ stands for console).
/C:string Uses specified string as a literal search string.
/G:file Gets search strings from the specified file(/ stands for console).
/D:dir Search a semicolon delimited list of directories
strings Text to be searched for.
[drive:][path]filename
Specifies a file or files to search.
Use spaces to separate multiple search strings unless the argument is prefixed
with /C. For example, 'FINDSTR "hello there" x.y' searches for "hello" or
"there" in file x.y. 'FINDSTR /C:"hello there" x.y' searches for
"hello there" in file x.y.
Regular expression quick reference:
. Wildcard: any character
* Repeat: zero or more occurrences of previous character or class
^ Line position: beginning of line
$ Line position: end of line
[class] Character class: any one character in set
[^class] Inverse class: any one character not in set
[x-y] Range: any characters within the specified range
\x Escape: literal use of metacharacter x
\<xyz Word position: beginning of word
xyz\> Word position: end of word
For full information on FINDSTR regular expressions refer to the online Command
Reference.
I just thought to put this in as I used it today about on 5 windows XP machines.
systeminfo
Gives you a list of your system details including os, hotfix/updates, hardware and network information. Sure you can get all this information in a lot of other places, either with commands or in the GUI but this is a great command to find out a lot about a machine very quickly.
I've got a PHP script which I'm running from a command line (windows) that performs a variety of tasks, and the only output it gives is via 'print' statements which output direct to screen.
What I want to do is capture this to a log file as well.
I know I can do:
php-cli script.php > log.txt
But the problem with this approach is that all the output is written to the log file, but I can't see how things are running in the mean time (so I can stop the process if anything dodgy is happening).
Just to pre-empt other possible questions, I can't change all the print's to a log statement as there are far too many of them and I'd rather not change anything in the code lest I be blamed for something going fubar. Plus there's the lack of time aspect as well. I also have to run this on a windows machine.
Thanks in advance :)
Edit: Thanks for the answers guys, in the end I went with the browser method because that was the easiest and quickest to set up, although I am convinced there is an actual answer to this problem somewhere.
You can create a powershell script that runs the command, reads the data from the command's STDOUT then outputs the output to both the log file and the terminal for you to watch. You can use the commands Write-Output and Write-Host.
Microsoft's site: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/msh/cmdlets/tee-object.mspx
Another option would be use find a tee program that will read input and divert it to two different outputs. I believe I have seen these for windows but I don't think they are standard.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tee_(command)
I have always opened the log file up in my web browser. This allows me to refresh it easily and does not interrupt any writing to the file that windows does. It isn't particularly elegant but it does work!
You want the "tee" command for Windows. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tee_(command)
Powershell includes a tee command, and there are also numerous versions of tee for Windows available, for instance:
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
http://www.chipstips.com/?p=129
Also can be implemented in VBScript if you prefer.
EDIT: Just occurred to me I should also mention the tail command: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_(Unix). Tail allows you to read the last N lines of a file, and also includes a "file monitor" mode that just continually displays the end of the file in real-time. This is perfect for log file monitoring since it allows you to watch the log in real-time without interfering with the process that's writing to the log. There are several implementations of tail for Windows, both command line and GUI based. Microsoft's Services For UNIX packages (or whatever they're calling it now) also include a version of tail. Some examples:
mTail
Tail for Win32
WinTail
MakeLogic Tail
Some of these go far beyond just displaying the file in real-time as it updates and can send email alerts and colorize string matches, monitor multiple files at once, etc.
Slow:
for /f "delims=" %a in ('php-cli script.php') do #echo %a&echo %a>>log.txt
or in a batch file:
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('php-cli script.php') do #echo %%a&echo %%a>>log.txt