how to create an interactive batch program

8/3/2019 How to Create an Interactive Batch Program

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/how-to-create-an-interactive-batch-program 1/3

How to Create an InteractiveBatch ProgramBy Josh R Bellendir - Writer, Consultant, & Businessman

www.jbellendir.com

Files on windows with the file extension ".bat" are called batch files. These

are usually small files with some lines of Windows batch code that can help

automate things for users. They are commonly used to do the following:

Add a share drive

Add a share printer

Replace shortcut files on your desktop

They can be used to do most of the common tasks we do on a windows

machine. They are usually added to a users logon profile so that they are run

every time that user logs into Windows. They can also be used as interactive

programs to do the above mentioned items. Let's say you wanted to give a

user the option of WHICH share drive he/she wanted to map. A normal batch

script will just map a predefined share drive. Well, I'm going to show you how

to write a batch script to ask the user which drive to map and then map it for

them.

Let's go over a few things so we know what each command does.

@echo - this outputs text to the users screen

So '@echo Print this' would result in the user screen displaying 'Print this'

'@echo.' with a period after it will print out a blank line after your text. This is

good to make the output easier to read.

@set is used to set a variable. A variable that we can set and assign based

on user input.

'@set VARIABLEA=' will set a variable named VARIABLEA and will set it to

null (an empty value)

Now here is how we set a value to that variable based on what the user

types in.

'@set /P VARIABLEA=TYPE IN A NUMBER. I.E. 1:%=%'



The above line will ask a user to TYPE IN A NUMBER. The user will enter in a

number and hit the enter key. Then VARIABLEA will have the value the user

entered.

To output the value in that variable to the screen we will do this:

'@echo %VARIABLEA%'

Another two helpful commands to learn are pause and echo off/on.

'@pause' will pause the screen and ask the user to hit a key to continue

'@echo off' will prevent the system from outputting system messages

'@echo on' will turn back on system messages

So let's now put all this into practice. Let's create a simple interactive batchscript that asks a user which share drive they would like to map and then

map it for them. In order to do this, we will need to know the windows

command to map a network drive. As long as you can execute these

commands in dos then we are good to use them. Here is the syntax to map a

network drive:

net use {drive letter}: \\{path to drive} /PERSISTENT:YES

The persistent option will tell it to map the drive with the option to

automatically map it each time the user logs on. Typically we will want to

use this option. So let's use the above code to make our script. Once you are

done, it will look something like below. Be sure to copy and paste this inside

a text file, save as .bat and then you will be able to double click it to run.

Enjoy!

DRIVE MAPPER v1.0

@echo MAP YOUR DRIVE

@echo.

@echo --- SELECT A SHARE DRIVE ---

@echo 1.) MOVIES FOLDER

@echo 2.) PHOTOS FOLDER

@echo 3.) MUSIC FOLDER



@echo.

@set DRIVE=

@set /P DRIVE=ENTER THE NUMBER THAT YOU WANT TO MAP. I.E. 1:%=%

@ECHO.

@set DRIVE=

@set /P DRIVELETTER=ENTER THE DRIVE LETTER YOU WANT TO USE. I.E....F:

%=%

@echo.

@echo.

@echo YOUR SHARE DRIVE WILL BE MAPPED TO LETTER: %DRIVELETTER%

@pause

@echo off

IF (%DRIVE%)==(1) net use %DRIVELETTER%: \\192.168.1.4\movies/PERSISTENT:YES

IF (%DRIVE%)==(1) net use %DRIVELETTER%: \\192.168.1.4\photos

/PERSISTENT:YES

IF (%DRIVE%)==(1) net use %DRIVELETTER%: \\192.168.1.4\music

/PERSISTENT:YES

@echo on

@echo.

@echo IF YOU DON'T SEE ANY ERRORS ABOVE, YOUR DRIVES HAVE NOW

BEEN MAPPED. IF YOU SEE ERRORS ABOVE, PLEASE RERUN THIS UTILITY AND

MAKE CHANGES. MOST ISSUES ARE BECAUSE YOU SELECTED A DRIVER

LETTER IN USE OR YOU DIDN'T SELECT A CORRECT NUMBER FROM THE LIST

ABOVE.

@pause

Written by Josh R Bellendir, 2/27/2011Check out www.jbellendir.com for more articles, stories,tutorials, and reviews!

how to create an interactive batch program

Documents