What do .bat files do

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About Us Learn about ReviverSoft. Trust The importance of trust. BAT file in a text editor will display the code that makes up the file. For example, this is the text inside a. BAT file that's used to empty the clipboard:.

Here's another example of a. BAT file that uses the ping command to see if the computer can reach a router with this particular IP address :. Again, take great care when opening executable file formats like. BAT files that you have received via email , downloaded from websites you're not familiar with, or even created yourself. There are other executable file extensions you should avoid. Using a. BAT file in Windows is as simple as double-clicking or double-tapping it.

You don't need to download any special program or tool. To use the first example from above, entering that text into a text file with a text editor and then saving the file with the.

BAT extension will make the file an executable that you can open to immediately erase anything saved to the clipboard. The second example, which uses the ping command , will ping that IP address; the pause command keeps the Command Prompt window open when the process is finished so you can see the results.

If your file doesn't seem to be a text file, then you're probably not dealing with a. Check the file extension to make sure you aren't confusing a. BAK or. BAR Age of Empires 3 data file with a. As shown, the code of a. BAT file is not hidden in any way, which means it's very easy to edit. Because certain instructions in a. BAT file such as the del command can wreak havoc on your data, converting the BAT file to a format like EXE to make it more like an application file might be wise.

You can convert a. BAT file to an. EXE file using a few command line tools. You can read how to do this at How-To Geek. Instead of searching for a. BAT to SH bash shell script converter to use the. The structure of the two formats is rather different because the files are used in different operating systems. There is a Stack Overflow thread and this Unix Shell Scripting tutorial for some information that might help you translate the commands manually. Usually, you can't change a file extension like.

BAT to one that your computer recognizes and expect the newly renamed file to be usable. An actual file format conversion using one of the methods described above must take place in most cases. Given that the. BAT files are just text files with a. BAT extension, however, you can rename it to. TXT to open it with a text editor. Remember that doing a. TXT conversion will prevent the batch file from executing its commands. Users can manually create BAT files with a text editor, such as Notepad or Wordpad, and add multiple commands on separate lines that can be executed by the command-line interpreter.

When saving a batch file, save it with a. TXT file then rename the. It is located in the root directory of the boot drive. BAT files may be used to distribute and execute malware attacks on victims' computers. To protect against malicious attacks, never double-click an unknown BAT file.