Tips for Writing Batch Files

Use the ECHO command to write text to the screen.
Run Windows programs from the command line with the "start" command.
Use "command" debug mode to single-step through a Batch script.
If you use in a batch file something like if %1 == OK :, this may crash your batch file because, if %1 is empty, it will result in a syntax error. Instead, use if %1. == OK. :
There is a trick: use :: instead of REM.
To echo an empty line on the screen, use ECHO:
Instead of using DEFRAG, you can check individual files or groups of files to see if they are fragmented. To do so, type in 'CHKDSK filenames', where 'filenames' is a filename or group of filenames you would like to check. For example, to check the GAMES directory for fragmentation in *.DAT files, type in this command. CHKDSK C:\GAMES\*.DAT CHKDSK will give you a report of each file's non-contiguous blocks. The more non-contiguous blocks a file has, the more fragmented it is.

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