BAT and CMD files

[hougtimo]

Hi,

What exactly is the difference between BAT and CMD files? As far as I can tell they're about the same.

Are they just the same with a different file extension?

Thanks

HougTimo

[Sonic]

yes it's just the extension.

You can keep .bat to keep compatibility with old-windows (9x)

.cmd work only on NT 5.x systems (xp/2000)

[nmX.Memnoch]

BAT files work in the context of command.com.

CMD files work in the context of cmd.exe.

There are some things you can do within CMD files that take a bit more work to do in a BAT file. For instance, if I wanted to "start" a process and tell the script to wait on it to finish this would be the line to use in a CMD file:

START "" /WAIT process_to_start.exe

But to do the same thing in a BAT file you have to do the following:

%COMSPEC% /C START "" /WAIT process_to_start.exe

which effectively calls the CMD.EXE environment with the %COMSPEC% command. If you're using strictly Windows 2000 or XP then I personally would stick with just using the CMD extension.