Posts Tagged Batch
Add Date and Time to any Batch File Output
This trick is useful for both troubleshooting batch file tasks and when using a batch file to create a log. For example I have a scheduled task that renames some of my backup folders at night and then moved a few files around for me. When the batch file starts I uses the below code to print the time it starts, I repeat the two lines at the end of the batch file so that I can see what time the job completed. This is useful for figuring out average time of a task so that you can schedule other things without interfering.
How to Rename a File Over a Network Through a Batch File
Sometime you need to rename a file or a folder that does not reside on your sever. For example I run a scheduled task on one sever to rename the folder on another server so that I can automatically archive backups weekly. Batch files or command line operations do not support UNC paths like \\myserver\my_share without taking some steps first.
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Automatically Remove Windows Search 4.0
Microsoft has a funny way of sneaking ‘features’ in with patches. In this case Windows Search 4.0 is not really a feature as much as a problem. It was installed on a few of the networks I support as part of our weekly patching, and the next day I got a bunch of calls about reduced performance. I figured that people would complain until it finished indexing. Not the case, it seemed to cripple computers and crush servers. It indexed to the point of actually leaving no resources for users to authenticate to one of our terminal servers. I started looking for a fix and came up with this:
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Inserting a Wait in a Batch File, Using Netstat in a Login Script
So you want to pause a batch file for a few seconds. Unfortunately windows doesn’t provide a very simple way of doing this. I wanted to run ‘netstat -b’ 25 seconds after a user logged into their computer as to give the computer enough time to start up all background applications. But, there is no wait function in batch files. Well I found a workaround. If you use the ‘-n’ argument with the ping command you can specify the amount of time to run a ping for. Thus ping -n 60 127.0.0.1 will ping your local host for 60 seconds. This will more or less keep the batch file at a standstill for a specified number of seconds before continuing. In my case I used it for a pause in a login script.
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