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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 batch script 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%: 192.168.1.4movies /PERSISTENT:YES
IF (%DRIVE%)==(1) net use %DRIVELETTER%: 192.168.1.4photos /PERSISTENT:YES
IF (%DRIVE%)==(1) net use %DRIVELETTER%: 192.168.1.4music /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