Best resiurce for DOS scripting (BATCH)

[hossmonkey]

I'm wondering what book would be the best resource for teaching me batch writting ..... prefferably a book that has a cd so I can try the examples out on my PC?

I use to work for SUN until I was laid off (screw Scott M.!) & tought myself unix but never got into scripting, but was aware of grep awk & the like. Now I'd like to learn DOS scripting so I can make an unattended CD with my drivers & try to eliminate newb questions or at least ask the questions the correct way! :-)

Are there other DOS shells like in UNIX, that I should be aware of?

Is there a prefrence file for DOS for making command line short cuts & pointing to directories, like in UNIX?

Any other important read(s) resources would be good as well to expand my KB.

Regards,

Scott ----> not Scott M.!

[maxXPsoft]

Check this out As mentioned some of it is wrong but it give's some examples for all.

Most the stuff I have learned is try a command and if its not right, GOOGLE Advanced Search to the rescue. I have that old MS_Dos 6.2 book still laying around and it was a little help back in 3.1 day's.

They (MS) killed Dos nearly in ME and I was totally surprised when XP brought it back with a slew of new command's. Try NET at the prompt but be careful. I hear its going to be extended further in Longhorn or next major Window's.

Wish I had time to get the hang of C++ myself or even that new .NET, I have the free ICsharp and been messing with it.

Have Fun and if you have ? just ask them. The only stupid question is one not asked cause there is no answer. Some don't think that way but I do.

By all mean's do try the Search on the forum's first though, even though for me it rarely return's anything except error's mostly. Don't know what's up with that.

[Whimsy]

Check this out As mentioned some of it is wrong but it give's some examples for all.

They (MS) killed Dos nearly in ME and I was totally surprised when XP brought it back with a slew of new command's. Try NET at the prompt but be careful. I hear its going to be extended further in Longhorn or next major Window's.

Actually, Windows NT's command Console has always had a superior command line set to he DOS/9X series. They are far more flexable, and have a lot more features. As for Longhorn, it's said to include the SFU (Services for Unix) libraries integrated, with include native win32 ports of common unix commands, including grep and the like.

The most concise resource I've found for windows NT scripting was the command "help", followed by "commandname /?". Help lists them, and /? details them. Example:

c:\> Help

[list of commands]

c:\> if /?

[Detailed info]

Addiitonally, the MSDN has pages dedicated to advanced scripting, but this alone works out better than you'd expect.