Batch File rookie with an idea

[NooNoo]

Robocopy is part of Win7 and Vista...

[Niclo Iste]

I never used it before and wasn't aware it was native to those OSes. Though it wouldn't help me on the majority xp machines I still service.

[NooNoo]

True, but it won't be long before you are going to be seeing a lot of Win7 machines, so you may as well play with it.

[Niclo Iste]

lol why must you always be right? I think I'm just a sucker for the old ways and that's why I'm so stubborn. Semi off topic but I'm trying to keep a collection of tools that would be handy in the command prompt and dos since I find they tend to be a more stable work around when infections and such arise. Sooner or later I'm going to attempt making a dos booting thumb drive just for fixing infections that way. Maybe I should start a thread asking how to do that. Or maybe there is something you can point me towards that might teach me neat dos commands and tricks. The biggest I'm interested in is how to utilize an active internet connection while in a dos environment to access and download updates or files I need.

[NooNoo]

OK stop there.... you are confusing DOS (an operating system that had 7 major versions) and the command line available in the NT based OSes. Do not confuse the two... you will wind up in version hell.

Unless you are doing a lot of 98 or ME, forget DOS and look up recovery console. Learn command line and powershell.

Win7 gets sold for $50 for the next few weeks.... you are not going to get a lot of 98 and ME stuff....

[Niclo Iste]

I never had much success with the recovery console allowing me to explore the directory trees and move files around. So I always figured it was a limited environment. That's why I'm looking into most of this. Generally I'd rather fix the system without having to load the GUI/windows. It always was much easier back in the win98 days to start in dos and fix windows files. I'm trying to recreate that and have some extra utilities for newer systems.

[NooNoo]

Well you can go to safemode command line, but it still is not DOS!
Recovery console is limited - you can turn off services, copy or delete files, set attributes etc.

here is a list for command line commands As you can see, it does a lot more than DOS ever did... but it is just that - command line version of what you can do through the GUI.

[El_Squid]

Gawds, I miss deltree!

[Niclo Iste]

You and I both El_Squid!

By the way, thanks for replying to this I wasn't aware that NooNoo had put a link up for those commands.

[CeeBee]

Gawds, I miss deltree!

rmdir [Drive:]Path [/s] [/q]

[Matridom]

How about a linux Live CD or bootable USB stick with a *nix distro on it?

It will read NTFS, by-pass all permissions, and you can script commands fairly easy in the bash shell. Finally, since it's *nix, it will probably be immune to the virus on the system you are cleaning.

[Niclo Iste]

How about a linux Live CD or bootable USB stick with a *nix distro on it?

It will read NTFS, by-pass all permissions, and you can script commands fairly easy in the bash shell. Finally, since it's *nix, it will probably be immune to the virus on the system you are cleaning.

Hmm it's plausible but I need dos or the command prompt to run the antispyware and andivirus tools I have.

[Matridom]

Hmm it's plausible but I need dos or the command prompt to run the antispyware and andivirus tools I have.

I was making the assumption that if the system is so bad that you are resorting to a command shell to recover files, you would be re-formating the system.

Also as it's been stated earlier, there is no DOS in windows 2k and beyond. With XP/vista, I would say the majority of drives are formated NTFS, that means that your boot disks to dos won't be able to read the drive regardless to clean.

I find that if you can't clean it from inside of windows, the OS is too far gone to recover and you are re-installing.