Note: Under DOS & Win9x/ME some of the simple STDOUT redirection and
pipes work, but none of the advanced STDERR or multiple command methods
are supported.
IO Redirection in Windows NT, 2000, XP, UNIX (sh, bash and variants)
File Descriptors
FD
Description
1
STDOUT
2
STDERR
3+
Additional files as opened by the process
Redirection
Command
Description
cmd1 | cmd1
Pipe STDOUT of cmd1 into STDIN of cmd2
\> file
Direct STDOUT to file, overwriting existing contents
\>\> file
Direct STDOUT to file, appending to existing contents
`>
file`
2\> file
Direct STDERR to file, overwriting existing contents
2\>\> file
Direct STDERR to file, appending to existing contents
\< file
Get STDIN from file
2\>&1
Direct STDERR to the same place as STDOUT
\>& file
Direct both STDOUT and STDERR to file
2\>&
Duplicate STDOUT to STDERR
echo 'foo' \>&2
Send output to STDERR instead of STDOUT
Notes:
Numbered file descriptions above may be used arbitrarily.
noclobber is a UNIX setting that prevents overwriting (clobbering)
existing files by redirection.
UNIX /dev/null is equivalent to Windows NUL. Windows NUL is not case
sensitive.
^ is the meta-character escape in DOS/Windows, so it may sometimes
be necessary to use ^| (e.g. when using egrep in a batch file). You
may use ^^ for a literal ^.
Examples:
Command
Description
dir c:\*.* > myls.txt
Redirect output of ls into myls.txt, overwriting or creating myls.txt if necessary
dir c:\winnt\*.* >> myls.txt
Append more output of ls into myls.txt
noisy_cmd > NUL
Make STDOUT output from noisy_cmd go away
noisy_cmd 2> NUL
Make STDERR output from noisy_cmd go away
noisy_cmd > NUL 2>&1
Make ALL output from noisy_cmd go away
noisy_cmd 2> NUL 1>&2
Make ALL output from noisy_cmd go away
noisy_cmd | more
Pipe noisy_cmd STDOUT into more (or less or whatever)
noisy_cmd 2>&1 | more
Pipe noisy_cmd STDOUT and STDERR into more (this is great for those “net” commands that scroll off the screen when you try to get help)
echo some message 1>&2
Use the echo command to send output to STDERR (it usually goes to STDOUT).
Running Multiple Commands in Windows NT, 2000, UNIX (sh, bash and variants)
Use parentheses to nest as needed.
Command
Description
cmd1 & cmd2
Run cmd1, then run cmd2
cmd1 ; cmd2
Run cmd1, then run cmd2 (UNIX only)
cmd1 && cmd2
Run cmd1. If it finishes successfully then run cmd2
This content is obsolete, but I am leaving it here as a historical reference.
Introduction
Does your computer ever do any of the following, “just for the heck of
it,” with no rhyme or reason? Does it do it a lot? More than once or
twice a day?
Lock up, freeze or otherwise crash unpredictably
Lock up, freeze or otherwise crash predictably
Often have Application Errors, Segmentation Faults (used to be GPFs
– General Protection Faults).
“Thrash” the hard drive – that is, have a lot of hard drive
activity (and sometimes even noise) with little result, or when you
are not actually doing anything? (This can also mean you need more
physical memory or RAM.)
If so, this page may be able to help. It is intended for novice
users, so hopefully everything will be clear. Let me know at JPATjpsdomainDOTorg
if it’s not.
Warning
This page is mostly oriented towards the Win9x code-base, which includes
Windows 95, 98 and ME. Some of the material is applicable to Windows
NT/2000/XP (such as clearing the temp directory) and some is not. This
is indicated in square brackets after each step.
Disclaimer
Some of the methods and techniques I talk about can be dangerous to your
data! Use this page at your own risk.
Make backups of your important data. I strongly recommend purchasing and
using a modern tape drive. They cost between $100 to $500 for typical
retail/consumer oriented units. Some of them even plug right into your
printer port, so you don’t even have to open up the computer to install
it, and they may be used on more than one computer. Another solution is
a CD Burner. They will not be able to back up the entire system, but
your data files will easily fit onto a CD-Rewritable or CD-R disk.
Consumer Tape Units
To be added.
CD Burners
To be added.
Hardware Upgrade/Restore Voodoo
Thanks to Leo for this great info.
Ever try to upgrade hardware on a Windows 2000 or XP system, especially
the motherboard or hard drive controller? Bet you regretted it, didn’t
you? Well, here are some MS TechNet articles that might help. Read
the
disclaimer!
“STOP 0x0000007B” Error After Moving Windows 2000/XP System Disk to
Another System
[Windows
2000]
[Windows
XP]
How to Move a Windows 2000/XP Installation to Different Hardware
[Windows
2000]
[Windows
XP]
Winsock Issues
The Windows TCP/IP networking stack is not the most stable thing in the
world. In particular, there is a ability for third-party applications to
tie themselves into the stack for various reasons. The advisability of
allowing this is questionable at best, but there it is. One of the
possible results of this “feature” is that Windows networking can
sometimes simply die. Often there is no remedy but reinstalling the
entire system from scratch.
However, since this is a known issue and such a giant pain there are a
couple of tools available to try and help. In particular,
LSP-Fix “is a free utility to repair
[problems in] Layered Service Provider or LSP, a piece of software
that can be inserted into the Windows TCP/IP handler like a link in a
chain. However, due to bugs in the LSP software or deletion of the
software, this chain can get broken, rendering the user unable to access
the Internet.”
Crapware & system slowdown or instability
There are programs out there that spy on you (spyware), monitor
keystrokes, bother you with advertisements (adware) and all kinds of
other things. They are often collectively known as “crapware” and they
are BAD. Many add-on tool or search bars for IE are crapware! Many of
the symptoms above can be cause by crapware, so it’s definitely worth it
to look into. I recommend reading the following links, then installing
and using the free
Ad-aware and
Spybot programs.
The PC Decrapifier will uninstall
many of the common trialware and annoyances found on many of the PCs
from big name OEMs (XP or newer only).
I call these techniques “voodoo” because it is often not clear that they
a) should work or b) why they work. They just do. This page is mostly
oriented towards the Win9x code-base, which includes Windows 95, 98 and
ME. Some of the material is applicable to Windows NT/2000/XP (such as
clearing the temp directory) and some is not. This is indicated in
square brackets after each step.
I’ve created a bootdisk that will automate some of these steps for you,
if you are using Win9x/ME. See the Boot Disk
section below.
Shutdown your computer. Turn it off, and unplug the AC cord. Try to
turn it on and off again a few time (this clears gremlins out of
components that normally get power even when the PC is “off”).
[All]
Boot into “DOS” mode. [Win9x/ME]
Clean out the “Temp” directory. [All]
Run ScanDisk and/or Chkdsk (technically, ScanDisk
is preferable, but I’ve had some luck with ChkDsk where ScanDisk
failed). [All]
Reboot into GUI (Graphical User Interface) mode. [All]
Defrag your hard drive. [All but NT]
Get rid of unnecessary “services” and background programs. [All]
Reboot and test to make sure everything works. [All]
Finally, the worst case is that you have to back up your data, reformat
your hard drive, and start over.
Boot into DOS Mode
Skip this step if you are using my boot disk.
This applies to Win9x/ME only. In NT, you can’t really do this at all,
especially if you are using NTFS (which you should be). (Technically,
that’s not true – there are ways. But they are far too complicated for
this page.) Win2K has something similar, but you probably don’t need or
want to mess with it.
Shutdown your computer. Turn it off, and unplug the AC cord. Try to
turn it on and off again a few time (this clears gremlins out of
components that normally get power even when the PC is “off”).
Wait about 5 minutes for it to really drain. Better yet, go to
lunch, or bed or go watch TV for awhile, or whatever.
Plug the AC cord back in and power up.
Watch for the screen to say “Starting Windows 9x.”
Hit the F8 button – quick – you have about 2 seconds. You should
get a menu.
Choose “Safe Mode - Command Prompt only”.
Continue on below and clean out your TEMP directory.
If you don’t get the “Starting Windows 9x.” or the menu, there are a
couple of reasons why that could be. Lots of computers have annoying
manufacturer logos that cover this stuff. Try hitting the ESC key when
the logo comes up. Other “F” keys sometimes work too.
You can also going to Start, Shutdown, “Restart in MS-DOS Mode,” which
will do pretty much the same thing. You type “exit” to end MS-DOS mode
and return to windows.
If you get the “Starting Windows 9x.” but pressing “F” keys does not
work, your c:\MS-DOS.sys file probably has BootKeys=0, BootMulti=0 or
something else screwy. Try rebooting and holding down one of the CTRL
keys. If that doesn’t work you have to edit c:\MS-DOS.sys, which is a
bit of a pain to correct that. See MS Technet “Contents of the Windows
Msdos.sys File
[Q118579]”
for details and instructions on how to fix it.
The “temp” directory is used to temporary files. Just about every
program uses temp files for something. The operating system uses then,
your applications like Word or Excel use them, and utilities use them.
What is supposed to happen is that when the program either shuts down,
or no longer needs the temp file – it is deleted. In practice this does
not always work. So over time you can build up amazing numbers of junk
temp files. I’ve seen computers with temp files dating back two and
three years, wasting hundreds of megs of disk space.
Of course, you can’t just randomly delete everything in the temp
directory. No. That would be too easy! The problem is that some of the
stuff in there might actually be in use and if you delete it, something
will break. Usually the system will not let you delete something that is
in use, but you can’t depend on that. There are two ways around this.
The first and best is to boot to DOS, which guarantees that nothing is
currently in use, then clear it. The second way is to reboot, and clean
out the temp directory before anything has a chance to get started. The
problem with that is that many people have all kinds of stuff running in
the background on startup, and those programs may open temp files right
away (see unnecessary services).
Boot to “DOS”
Find the TEMP directory. Usually c:\windows\temp (Win9x) or
c:\temp (NT).
Try to delete the TEMP directory with “deltree c:\windows\temp”
for Win9x or “deltree c:\temp” for NT. If it says “bad command or
filename” you do not have deltree in your path. Try
c:\windows\command\deltree. If that still does not work, cd into
the TEMP directory and type “del *.*”. In any case, when asked if
you really want to delete everything, make sure you are in the
correct place, and that it says to delete the correct things, and
say “yes.”
If deltree worked, you must re-create the temp directory. Type “md
c:\windows\temp” or “md c:temp” as needed.
While you’re at it, run ScanDisk (see below).
Run ScanDisk and/or Chkdsk
Do this after using the boot disk.
ScanDisk and Chkdsk (Check Disk) perform more or less the same function.
The difference is that Chkdsk is the old, DOS, command line tool, which
does not really know about long file names. ScanDisk is the more modern
graphical tool that can deal with a few more problems than Chkdsk. There
is also command line (non GUI) version of ScanDisk.
Non-GUI
Boot to “DOS”.
Type “scandisk” and let it run.
Reboot when finished.
GUI
Double-Click on “My Computer”.
Right-Click on the C: drive.
Choose “Properties”.
Find the “Tools” tab and choose it.
Click on the “Check Now” button.
Run Defrag (Win9x or Win2k only)
Read the
disclaimer! If the power goes out while defrag
is running, you can lose your data!
Do this after using the boot disk.
NT does not come with a defragger, so you are out of luck. Win9x and
Win2k do have them. You want to run it from the GUI (Graphical User
Interface) not the command line or DOS prompt.
Double-Click on “My Computer”.
Right-Click on the C: drive.
Choose “Properties”.
Find the “Tools” tab and choose it.
Click on the “Defragment Now” button.
Remove Unnecessary Services
Do this after using the boot disk.
This is easy to say, but hard to do. There are so many different tools
and configurations out there that it’s impossible to say what is really
needed or not. However, if your system tray (the little area next to the
clock) has more than 3-8 items in it, you probably have too many and
could get rid of some. Also, some incredibly annoying applications, such
as Netscape (which I otherwise like) install crap you probably don’t
want or need in the system tray – without asking! For example, Real
Player and AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) are often installed. Quicken is
another one that runs a bunch of crap most people don’t use.
I can’t even really tell you how to get rid of them, as they are all
different. However, I can tell you where to look.
Win98 (and I assume ME)
If you have Win98 (or I assume ME, but I don’t know for sure), go to
Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Information, then get
the Tools, System Configuration Utility. Better yet, go to Start, Run
and type “msconfig” (without the quotes) and hit enter. This gets you to
the same place, a lot faster.
Anyway, the System Configuration Utility has a very cool “Startup” tab.
This shows you all the stuff that starts up with your PC. You can go
in there and un-check things, then reboot and make sure everything still
works. You should check all the other tabs, but unless you see something
really obvious (like drivers for an old hardware device you no longer
have) you should probably not touch them too much.
NT
Go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, Services. See what is started, and
what is automatic. Try stopping things that you know you don’t need. For
example, you might be running a web server, FTP server, etc. without
even knowing it. This is a large security risk as well. If you can
stop services with no ill effects, you must change the startup type to
manual (which will still allow the service to be started under some
circumstances) or disabled (the service is now toast) or they will be
restarted the next time you reboot.
Win2K
Go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.
See above NT section for the rest of the details.
Other Possibilities
Consider these after trying the above and/or using the boot disk.
Do you turn your PC off every ay or two? This is less of an issue
for NT/2000, but with Win9x, if I leave it on for more than 5-8
days, it gets really wacky and crashes. Get an “uptime” utility to
find out how long your machine has been up. See my
Favorite Utilities, Tools, Software for Windows
to get one.
Another possibility is a bad driver for some device. Video card
drivers are notorious for this. This one can look like either of the
next two.
A version conflict between some files can cause these kinds of
symptoms. It could be system DLLs or just about anything, and is
very hard to diagnose. Sometimes, if all the problem started when
you installed something (like the AOL client or IE, both of which
can really screw up your system) or if it always/only happens when
you run a particular program, you can figure out what did it and
maybe uninstall or fix it. But sometimes it’s more subtle than
that, as in the case where it’s a particular combination of thing,
that doesn’t happen often or is hard to reproduce. Then you’re kind
of stuck. Nuking the system and re-installing everything from
scratch might fix it, but that’s a lot easier said than done.
Finally, flaky hardware, new (and not quite compatible) hardware, or
hardware in the process of going bad. Systematically swapping out
hardware one bit at a time will usually find this kind of thing. Of
course, that takes a lot of time, and most people do not have spares
of everything. Your local computer shop might be able to help, but
don’t be surprised if they can’t, won’t or charge a lot for it.
The Boot Disk
This boot disk will work for Win9x/ME. It might work for NT/2000/XP, if
you are using the FAT file-system (which you shouldn’t be). This disk
uses only FREE programs – from the FREEDOS
Project!
Download the Boot Disk.
This boot disk will clean out the TEMP directory and some other junk
files, then try to run a command line ScanDisk. Since you are booting
from the disk, you do not have to mess with DOS mode – you’re already
where you need to be.
It will also clean up some other files that I didn’t mention above. If
any of the following exist, they will be deleted:
Lets you create DOS and Win95 boot sectors for the NT Loader
(NTLdr.exe). IT also lets you fix broken NT boot sectors. Very nice
little freeware tool. For more information about NT Boot Sectors,
you can check this direct boot
page.
Old Microsoft utility to delete partitions – ANY partitions. Great
for removing NTFS partitions from a bootable DOS floppy, or for
those times when FDisk confuses itself and will not let you remove
an extended partition because it says there are logical drives, but
when you try to delete the logical drives it says there aren’t
any…
From PC Magazine, allows you to compare two different directories
(see FreeCommander, below). Since this is so old (DIRMATCH 3.1 (c)
1989 Ziff Communications Co.) it doesn’t really work with long
filenames. (If you have problems downloading try
dirmatch.com.txt and rename it
to remove the trailing .txt.)
A dual-pane file manager for all 32-bit windows platforms (i.e.
95/98/NT/2000). It is a free program, similar to an updated Norton
Commander. Nicer and more current than 2xExplorer.
An obsolete dual-pane file manager for all 32-bit windows platforms
(i.e. 95/98/NT/2000). It is a free program, similar to an updated
Norton Commander. Use the previous one instead.
Really awesome “native” Win32 ports of some UNIX tools. Native
in this context means that no emulation layer (e.g. CygWin) is
needed. This avoids a lot a installation complexity. With these
native tools, you unzip ’em and run ’em!
bc-1.05, bison-1.28, bzip2-1.0.2, diffutils-2.7, fileutils-3.16,
findutils-4.1, flex-2.5.4, gawk-3.1.0, grep-2.4.2, gsar110,
gzip-1.2.4, indent-2.2.9, jwhois-2.4.1, less-340, m4-1.4,
make-3.78.1, patch-2.5, recode-3.6, rman-3.0.7, sed-3.02,
shellutils-1.9.4, tar-1.12, textutils-2.1, unrar-3.00, wget-1.8.2,
which-2.4.
It it listed as a beta, and for Windows 3.51, but it runs under NT
4. I have not tested it much though. See the
Readme.txt
or download the
archive
(~ 1.7 meg). Licensed under GNU (free), and stand alone (i.e. does
not need DJGPP or CygWin).
While the programs above are ports of various UNIX tools, the next four
items are complete UNIX environments for the PC. DJGPP is older, and has
not been updated too much (not that it needs it). DJ Delorie went to
work on the Cygwin project after he wrote DJGPP. Both environments are
very cool! I don’t know too much about the other two, and have
never used them.
A complete 32-bit C/C++ development system for Intel 80386 (and
higher) PCs running DOS. It includes ports of many GNU development
utilities. The development tools require a 80386 or newer computer
to run, as do the programs they produce. In most cases, the programs
it produces can be sold commercially without license or royalties.
Use the DJGPP Zip File
Picker to figure out
what you need to download.
A port of the popular GNU development tools/environment for Windows
NT, 95, and 98. It implements the Cygwin library which provides the
UNIX system calls and environment the programs expect. With these
tools installed, it is possible to write Win32 console or GUI
applications that make use of the standard Microsoft Win32 API
and/or the Cygwin API. As a result, it is possible to easily port
many significant Unix programs without the need for extensive
changes to the source code. This includes configuring and building
most of the available GNU software (including the packages included
with the Cygwin development tools themselves). Even if the
development tools are of little to no use to you, you may have
interest in the many standard Unix utilities provided with the
package. They can be used both from the bash shell (provided) or
from the standard Windows command shell.
MS UNIX environment for NT/2K; $99. Was Software Systems (dead line:
http://www.interix.com/); Microsoft Corporation acquired them on
September 16, 1999.
“NirCmd is a small command-line utility that allows you to do some
useful tasks without displaying any user interface. By running
NirCmd with simple command-line option, you can write and delete
values and keys in the Registry, write values into INI file, dial to
your internet account or connect to a VPN network, restart windows
or shut down the computer, create shortcut to a file, change the
created/modified date of a file, change your display settings, turn
off your monitor, open the door of your CD-ROM drive, and more…”
FreeDOS aims to be a complete, free, 100% MS-DOS compatible
operating system.
FreeDOS is ideal for anyone who wants to bundle a version of DOS
without having to pay a royalty for use of DOS. FreeDOS will also
work on old hardware, in DOS emulators, and in embedded systems.
FreeDOS is also an invaluable resource for people who would like to
develop their own operating system. While there are many free
operating systems out there, no other free DOS-compatible operating
system exists.
There are also a great number of free DOS tools in the FreeDOS
Software List, such as
deltree,
exe2bin,
fdisk,
tree,
nasm,
finger,
tail,
tee,
which,
and
more.
AWESOME if you are a CLI (command line interface) junkie like me. It
is a replacement for command.com or cmd.exe (there are also a
variety of other products).
I can’t even begin to list all the features (which are pretty much
common across all platforms/products)! Since I am not the best
typist, the file name completion is one of my favorites. The ability
to copy to the clipboard from the DOS prompt is another great thing
(i.e. type autoexec.bat > clip:). If you have a DOS Prompt in your
Startup group (or equivalent) you NEED this stuff! It is shareware,
but reasonably priced for all that you get out of it.
List is Vernon D. Buerg’s famous text viewer
I used to be unable to exist without this thing, but I use less these days!
I used
v7.7a because it works
with network drives, but there are others, including shareware
versions such as v9.3a.
If you want something similar to list, but for UNIX, try “less” or
“pilot” which is the browser built into
Pine. “Pico,” the Pine editor,
is also good for people who don’t like the typical UNIX editors.
Pine is free (but not GPL).
Check out the new Windows versions. 2.04g is still the latest
DOS version. Do not download anything other than that – it may be a
virus. Better yet, use
InfoZip, the free
GNU replacement for the PKWare command line
tools. All PkWare is shareware.
From the Readme: “NMAKE.EXE 1.50 is a the version of NMAKE that
ships with Visual C++ 2.X. It is used to build external projects. It
is a 32 bit version of NMAKE that was designed to run on Windows NT
version 3.5. It has been extensively used on Windows 95 and requires
a 32 bit operating system. It will not work on Windows 3.1.”
Sweepup helps you keep crap from building up in your temp and cache
directories. WARNING: It may delete things you don’t want to
delete! Read and understand the code before you run it. It is
well documented and simple. Also note that some programs will copy
files to the temp directory, then require you to re-boot. Files from
the temp directory are then used to replace other files that are in
use when the system is up. If you run Sweepup from your “Startup”
group like I do, you can nuke these programs before they work. You
have been warned!
Windows & Graphical Tools
VNC
Real VNC,
TightVNC,
UltraVNC,
WinVNC (with NTLM authentication),
OSXvnc,
Xvnc
(X server on one side, VNC server on the other, very cool), or even
PerlVNC
A remote display system which allows you to view a computing
‘desktop’ environment not only on the machine where it is running,
but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machine
architectures. Essentially a FREE PC Anywhere on TCP/IP only,
supporting many different operating systems. (See also
Wikipedia
VNS details and history.)
A freeware telnet/dial-up application that supports Japanese fonts,
inline XModem, ZModem, Kermit, etc. and much more. It has its own
macro language too. It is not the easiest thing to set up
(especially the modem strings), but it works great. I wanted a
freeware application that could do ZModem and have the same
interface for both telnet and dial-in and had 16 and 32 bit
versions. This is a best one I’ve found. It also has a free Secure
Shell (ssh) client plug-in called
TTSSH.
An excellent shareware GUI-based full-featured compression
extraction program, that handles many formats (Zip, ARJ, LZH, ARC,
TAR, Z, GZ, TAZ, TGZ, UUencoded, XXencoded, BinHex, MIME , LZEXPAND
(MS *.??_)).
WinZipSE
creates Windows and/or DOS executable self-extracting archives that
can optionally install things (ala Win95). There are 16 and 32 bit
versions. Also see the
InfoZip graphical front end
WiZ. Last time I
checked, WinZip was still a lot better and easier than WiZ
though…
Uptime: See how long your Windows computer has been up.
The Uptime.exe that I like (looks cool, dynamic updates).
Vince Fatica’s
Uptimes (command line and GUI versions).
MS
Uptime.exe
(Microsoft’s feature bloated version – NT SP4 and better only).
This content is old! It’s still useful, but it’s old, and there may be bit rot, newer/better tools or ways to do things. Sanity check and do your research.
The term “shell script” comes from UNIX, the DOS term is “batch files.”
UNIX shell scripts are very powerful and flexible, they are essentially
programming languages unto themselves. Windows or more rightfully DOS
batch files are a pale imitation. However, sometimes you need to write
something that will just work on any plain old out-of-the-box
Windows install someone has–without adding all kinds of other tools.
Before getting too deep into this topic, consider if there is another
tool you might use. Here is a list of tools, all of which are far more
powerful, flexible and are probably easier to use than batch files:
Bash or other UNIX shells ported to DOS/Windows, e.g. the CygWin
project. It may not be totally
obvious how to get things at the Cygwin site. Either download the
“setup.exe” program,
which will guide you through everything, or use the mirrors
page to find a
mirror site and get everything yourself.
AutoIt Free scripting and
installation language for 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003. No
run-times and may be compiled into an EXE.
And there are tons of other free scripting tools for Windows out on
the ‘Net.
Powershell
If you follow Windows at all you will be aware that
Powershell is Microsoft’s
new command line tool, and that you will be required to use it more and
more with newer Windows versions. That is a Good Thing, in my opinion,
and it only took them about 20 years to realize, but that is not covered
here! I don’t really do Windows anymore and I have not bothered to
learn Powershell, which reminds me unpleasantly of Java’s verbose
ugliness. So this page is somewhat historical, though most everything
should work to at least Win7.
If you are interested in current Windows command line scripting and
Powershell (and if you like Windows you should be), there are any number
of other resources and books that will help. These are probably good but
I haven’t read them:
Did you know that Window’s cmd.exe has file and directory name
completion, like UNIX shells? It does, and that can be amazingly useful.
But in most versions of Windows it’s not turned on by default. (I
believe it may be on in Windows 2003, but can’t swear to it.)
To enable file and directory name completion under Windows, download
this registry file and remove the
.txt, then double-click on it and answer yes to the question about
importing into the Registry. If you can’t download for some reason you
can copy the text below into a new file and import it, or just open
regedit, navigate to the key, and change the values for CompletionChar
and PathCompletionChar to 9. One you’ve done that, open a new command
prompt and type dir c:\win then hit the TAB key and watch what
happens. Of course the up arrow and other command line editing functions
will still work as always.
REGEDIT4
; NT-TAB.reg -- Sets the NT Command Completion Character to TAB
; Use "RegEdit /s NT-TAB.reg" for silent installations
; v1.0 1998-10-22 JP Vossen http://www.jpsdomain.org/
; v1.1 2001-09-06 JPV Added PathCompletionChar
; v1.2 2003-03-30 JPV Added .DEFAULT and SOFTWARE sections
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor]
"CompletionChar"=dword:00000009
"PathCompletionChar"=dword:00000009
; Can also do this if you have the permissions
;[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor]
;"CompletionChar"=dword:00000009
;"PathCompletionChar"=dword:00000009
The Dirt
OK, if you are still going to go through with this, the first thing you
need is Tim Hill’s Windows NT Shell
Scripting,
otherwise you don’t have a chance. For Windows 9x/ME, you are still
toast, but for NT/2000 this book is really great. It’s the only way you
can navigate the bazaar, inconsistent, contradictory and often asinine
“scripting” language built into cmd.exe.
Using material from that book, plus my own almost 20 years experience
with DOS batch files, I still had a hell of a time writing the following
script. All it does is give you some basic file information (similar to
UNIX stat) and tell you if a file will fit on a floppy disk.
The Scripts
Clicking on the name of a script will open that script in a new
window.
Another of the many lacking tools is a simple “sleep” command, but you
can easily fake that using the “ping” command of all things. The
following will “sleep” for about 5 seconds, give or take:
C:\> ping -n 5 localhost \> NUL
Obviously you adjust the 5 as needed for the number of seconds. You can
even write a trivial “sleep” function in your scripts:
@echo off
REM sleep_demo.cmd--Simple "sleep" command demoREM 2012-07-26echo Before sleep
call :sleep 7
echo After sleep
REM End of Main programREM ###################################################################goto :EOF
REM +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++REM sleep for a specified number of seconds, more-or-less...REM Called like: call :sleep 7:sleep
set sleep_secs=%1
ping -n %sleep_secs% localhost > NUL
goto EoF
The Date
How to get and use dates and time in Windows scripts.
This is trivially easy in UNIX. You want to copy a log file to a dated
name? “cp mylog `date ‘+%Y-%m-%d’`-mylog” will copy mylog to
2002-11-27 (as of this writing). What could be easier? But in Windows,
it sucks.
There are two basic ways to approach this, both with advantages and
disadvantages. The native way is the “for” and “date /t” commands under
NT/2000/XP. These do NOT work under Windows 9x and they do not
consistently use 2 digit time fields, which totally screws you up if you
need the time. The second way is to use the UNIX date command, then do
whatever you please. This is very flexible, but requires you to download
and have the executable (date)
handy. You will also want to rename it (I use udate.exe) so you don’t
conflict with the built-in date command.
UPDATE (2012-07-26): All versions of Unix “date” commands that I have
tested under both WinXP and Win7 have a bug that causes them to skip
skip Mar-11 and/or
Apr-04!
That’s pretty annoying but has never been fixed as far as I know. Since
it affects both tools I’ve tested (UnxUtils and GNU Win32), I suspect
the Windows strftime lib is the problem. But I can’t prove it. And
someone else replied to the bug he could not reproduce the problem. So
I’d say it’s something I’m doing, but I find it off that both the WinXP
I’ve been using forever and a much newer Win7 do the same thing.
UPDATE (2003-06-07): Here is a third way that’s trivial! It seems
there are built-in but undocumented environment variables %time% and
%date% in Windows 2000. I have not tested other platforms (let me know
if you do). Due to the format, you can’t easily use the date in file
copy operations (for example), but the time should be OK. And it’s by
far the easiest option if you are just going to display (writing to a
log file or something).
C:\> echo %date% %time%
Sat 06/07/2003 18:32:30.52
Windows Trivial
@echo off
REM Play with W2K date/time env. vars.
echo The date: %date%
echo The time: %time%
UPDATE (2006-05-11): Here is a another trivial way! Thanks to
Richard Blake (RBlake {at} nea {DOT} org) for this great hack. In
addition to the above %time% and %date% variables, there is a
%VAR:offset,len% construct documented for the SET command, which works
elsewhere. As above, the use of a two digit time code can mess you up,
but for just the date it will work very well. Code to deal with non zero
padded hours is left as an exercise for the reader.
C:\tmp> set MyNewFileName=%DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2%%TIME:~0,2%%TIME:~3,2%%TIME:~6,2%
C:\tmp> echo %MyNewFileName%
20060511 21921
This RedmondMag.com Backup Basics in Windows Server 2008
R2
article expands on the same method, but they are not portable because
they depend on how your system time is displayed, and that will vary
from machine to machine based on locale and user preference. For
example, I loath any date/time format except for
ISO8601 so I have my Windows
formats set as close to that as possible, which then breaks the
assumptions in the first block:
@echo off
REM date_demo.cmd--Simple date parsing demoREM 2012-03-10echo Current dates (Windows default date format for US)
set year=%date:~10,4%
set month=%date:~4,2%
set day=%date:~7,2%
set hour=%time:~0,2%
set min=%time:~3,2%
set sec=%time:~6,2%
echo Date: %date% Time: %time%
echo ISO-8601: %year%-%month%-%day%_%hour%:%min%:%sec%
echo.
echo Current dates (ISO-8601 date format)
REM 2012-03-10set year=%date:~0,4%
set month=%date:~5,2%
set day=%date:~8,2%
set hour=%time:~0,2%
set min=%time:~3,2%
set sec=%time:~6,2%
echo Date: %date% Time: %time%
echo ISO-8601: %year%-%month%-%day%_%hour%:%min%:%sec%
Other Ways
windate v1.0 sometime in 2001 or
2002
Native Windows Date commands
unixdate v1.0 sometime in 2001
or 2002
Using a UNIX date command in Windows
Getting Input
There are various tools like ask.exe and choice.exe that allow you to
get input. There there’s an even easier, although undocumented, way: set
/P. As in:
set/P MyAnswer=Your Prompt Here!
That prompts the user with “Your Prompt Here!” and puts whatever they
type into %MyAnswer%. Very cool.
Simple Utilities
Except for FindZero.bat, all of these batch files will work under DOS,
or any Windows.
DOS Commands are not case sensitive, unlike UNIX commands.
An “@” as the first character of a line prevents the command from
echoing whether echo is on or off.
echo. will echo a blank line (CRLF).
Command line parameters are specified with %1, %2, etc. not $1, $2
as in UNIX.
%0 is the name of the program, as invoked. In other words, if you
type “mybatch” %0 will be “mybatch”. If you type
“c:\utils\mybatch.bat” %0 will be “c:\utils\mybatch.bat”.
^G is a ‘control G’ which makes the console beep. This tiny batch
file has a ^G in in, which you can
cut & paste into scripts. There are lots of other ways to get
control characters into files, but they depend on your OS and text
editor. In most DOS windows, holding down the <ALT> key while
typing the ASCII code on the numeric keypad will produce that
character. ^G is 007, you you hold down <ALT>, type 007 on the
numeric keypad, then release <ALT> to get a beep.
Tim Hill’s Windows NT Shell
Scripting
for much more information and detail. Much of the book applies to
DOS and Windows (other than NT) as well.
Requires ANSI.sys, included with DOS & Windows, or PC Magazine’s free
AnsiCom.
@echo off
REM SPrompt.bat -- Dynamically Set PromptREM Created sometime in 1992REM 03-Mar-1998 JPVREM 19-Feb-1999 JPV Added "neat" prompt from JPS mail listREM Neat PROMPT `$+[%user@$P]%@EXECSTR[if %@LEN[%_CWD] GT 20 ECHOS $_:$s]`prompt $e[0;33;1;44m$P$e[36;44m$G $e[0;37;44m
ifnot"%1"==""prompt $e[32;1m%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9$_$e[33m%prompt%
rem prompt $e[s$e[1;7f$e[0;45;37;1m$e[K($z) $d $t$e[u$e[1m$P$e[0m$G $e[0mrem set WINPMT=$e[0;33;1;44mEXIT to Windows$_$P$e[36;44m$G $e[0;37;44mif {%OS%}=={Windows_NT} prompt $P$G
WhoAmI.bat
Requires Microsoft Networking to be installed and active, and the DOS
find command. If you have a UNIX find command in the path, you’ll
probably get a “No such file or directory” error.
@echo off
echo.
net config /yes | find "name"echo.
pause
Sending e-mail
Something else that is taken for granted on UNIX is the ability to send
e-mail from the command line or a script. As usual, windows makes this a
challenge. There are a few free and commercial solutions for this,
including but not limited to the following list (I’ve only ever used
Blat):
Blat “is a Win32 command line utility that
sends eMail using the SMTP or NNTP protocols.”
NTsendmail “is Highly Acclaimed UNIX
Sendmail replacement for NT. NTsendmail is realeased under the GNU
Public License. NTsendmail was designed to enable script writers to
use their UNIX CGIs on Windows 95/98/NT/2000.”
And I’m sure there’s at least one or two Perl modules that can do
this.
Upload from Frontpage to your ISP
I used to use MS FrontPage to maintain this site (don’t ask me why). My
old ISP did not support FrontPage or its extensions, for excellent
security reasons. Using FrontPage to create pages, then uploading them
to a hosted site is a gigantic pain in the ass because of the way
FrontPage keeps all of its proprietary information in various
“_VTI_CNF” and other subdirectories. So simply zipping up the
directories and dumping them onto a host is not ideal. So I came up with
the following solution.
The old code I posted to a Netaxs news group was WRONG in places! THIS
stuff works.
I don’t use this any more, I use
Hugo and
Relearn.
Open issues are:
If you do a ZIP, and upload it, but do not delete it from the PC,
the next run will append, not overwrite. Your “diff” zip will just
keep growing. You need to manually delete the zip file after each
run is successful.
Since find is working off of the modification time, if you move a
file into the structure that has not been modified (i.e. a tool or
utility program) it will not be picked up by a diff. You have to add
that to the zip manually.
Unzip upload.zip and set permissions on www directory.
Windows Scripting Resources
Master and Command Line:
“Using the Windows GUI is fine–if you want to go slow. Learn to use
the command line and move into the administration fast lane.”
This content is old! It’s still useful, but it’s old, and there may be bit rot, newer/better tools or ways to do things. Sanity check and do your research.
This content is obsolete, but I am leaving it here as a historical reference.
Introduction
Welcome to the Windows port of Logcheck (now called LogSentry), the
famous UNIX log processing tool. Psionic was bought by Cisco who has
moved the cool Abacus tools, including LogSentry, to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sentrytools/
As you probably know if you are bothering to read this, LogSentry helps
spot problems and security violations in your logfiles automatically and
will send the results to you in e-mail. However, it can only work with
what it’s given. I personally find the Windows Event Logs to be verbose,
yet un-informative. So when you get e-mailed messages with three or 4
lines on arcane gibberish, remember that it’s the same information as
you would see in the Event Log, except it’s in a slightly different
format, and you are actually SEEING it! (Of course, you would have
reviewed the Event Logs anyway, right?) :-)
The beginning of each log entry contains the name of the Event Log, the
date, and the time, like: “DIR,7/20/2001 11:52:12”. this is followed by
the event details. The three letter codes for the Event Logs are:
APP Application
SEC Security
SYS System
DNS DNS (Win2000 Server(?) only)
DIR Directory Service (Win2000 Server(?) only)
RPL File Replication (Win2000 Server(?) only)
It will help to look for those codes to isolate one event from the next,
since your mailer will probably wrap the lines.
Also, the MS API for the Event Logs will return the application log if
the Event Log being asked for does not exist. Once it returns the
handle, there isn’t any way that DumpEvt can tell which log is being
read. For example, if you dump RPL on an NT box, or DNS on W2k Pro it
dumps the APP log instead. This causes duplicate entries in the capture
file. The only work-around right now is to edit wrapper.cmd and REM out
the Event Logs that do not exist on that machine.
While the actual logcheck.sh script could have been ported to the
CMD.EXE shell, I thought it was much more efficient and effective to
make as few changes to that as possible, and instead create a “wrapper”
program to translate “Windows” into “UNIX.”
I gave the wrapper the highly imaginative and interesting name of
“wrapper.cmd.” Note that it only runs under Windows NT and 2000 (and
probably XP though I have not tested that). In short, logcheck is
pointless without logs, which means the Event Logs. Since the Win9x
series doesn’t have those…
See the “Tools-Readme.txt” for details about what tools are needed.
Paths/Dirs
I struggled with the default directory location for a while. I *hate*
programs that put themselves in the %SYSTEMROOT% (e.g. c:\winnt)
directory. However, I wanted to be a little obscure, so I thought
c:\etc was a little too obvious. And I wanted to be reliable, so
“c:\Program Files” or “c:\Documents and Settings” were both too long,
and had annoying spaces. C:\Progra~1 and c:\Docume~1 are not 100%
reliable. So %SYSTEMROOT%\etc it is… Of course, you can change that
if you want.
%SYSTEMROOT%\etc
%SYSTEMROOT%\etc\lcwin Keyword files
%SYSTEMROOT%\etc\bin Binaries
%SYSTEMROOT%\etc\tmp Secured Temp directory
%SYSTEMROOT%\etc\bin Documentation and help files
Note the word “secured” above. YOU need to set proper permissions on
those directories so that the account under which logcheck runs as the
proper access, but “Everyone” else does not. See the INSTALL-Windows.txt
file for more details.
At the heart of logcheck are two basic things, grep and mail. If they
fail, so will logcheck. While in the UNIX world you can assume the
ability to send mail from the command line, in the Windows world you
can’t. So make sure Blat is working. Again, see the INSTALL-Windows.txt
file for more details.
License
This software is released under the GPLv2. See the included LICENSE
file.
Credits
First, to Marcus J. Ranum and Fred Avolio for writing the deceptively
simple yet brilliant original frequentcheck.sh for TIS Gauntlet.
Second, to Craig Rowland for applying the idea to system logs.
Third, to all the people who wrote or ported the tools I needed to get
logcheck to run under Windows, notably K. M. Syring, the guys at
Somarsoft, and Tim Charron.
Fourth, to G.P. and I.P. who sent me logs to test to help me tune the
keyword files, and answered various other questions.
I should also mention the guys at Bastille Linux, whos style I’ve copied
here a bit in the Setup program “interview.”
Resources
Finally, a few notes about other tools or resources that may be of
interest, if you’ve managed to read this far.
I’ve found the following book to be essential in other Windows scripting
projects, and it proved helpful in this project as well. For anyone who
thinks you couldn’t possibly find enough material in the old DOS batch
file language to write a book about it – that’s what I thought when I
saw it. Check it out! While not nearly as powerful, flexible or easy to
use (though some would argue that last) as UNIX shells, Windows’s
CMD.EXE is actually a lot more powerful than you think. Forget about
Command.com though…
Windows NT Shell Scripting, by Tim Hill
New Riders Publishing, Paperback, Published April 1998, 377 pages, ISBN
1578700477
Other Methods of accessing the NT Event logs (not free):
Win2K Server ResKit Perl scripts: EventLog.pl & EventQuery.pl
NT (etc.) ResKit Elogdmp.exe event log dumper
Other Tools of interest (free):
Snare
is a Windows service to send NT Event Logs to a SysLog server. (This
used to be called Backlog, the latest version of which is Backlog
1.9b and which is archived here and
here.
Backlog is much more simple than Snare and may still be quite
useful.)
NTSysLog is another
Windows service to send NT/2000 Event Logs to a SysLog server, but
the latest release seems to be 1.13 from October 21, 2002.
NTLast
is a UNIX-like “last” command for NT Event Log (ntobjectives.com)
Log Analysis:
The Log Analysis site, maintained
by Tina Bird and Marcus Ranum. The whole site is great, but of
special interest in the context of Winlogcheck are the following: