Batch w/ Multiple .EXE and Auto Answers

Question

Have a look at my batch file below. As you can see, I'm a pretty novice scripter. But, here is what I'm trying to accomplish.

Create a TEMP folder to copy another folder and its contents from a server to another server. Then copy folder contents, that much works. But the START of the first .exe provides me a need to answer 2 question. They need to be answered as a keypress of 1, and the second question needs a 0 to be entered, then the AppRemover6.exe will run. I've tried to use echo but I'm missing something or syntax is incorrect.

I also want the first exe to finish completely before going to the next exe.

As for the reg file, a windows pop-up needs to be answered automatically with an answer (mouse click) of YES to make the registry change.

@ECHO OFF
MD -P C:\TEMP
XCOPY "\\mybigserver\Apps\AppCleanerUtils" C:\TEMP /E /I
START /D "C:\TEMP\AppCleanerUtil6" AppRemover6.exe
START /D "C:\TEMP\AppCleanerUtil6" PatchRegistry.reg 
START /D "C:\TEMP\C:\TEMP\AppCleanerUtil5" AppRemover5.exe 
RMDIR /S /Q "C:\TEMP\AppCleanerUtil6"
RMDIR /S /Q "C:\TEMP\AppCleanerUtil5"

If there is a better way to do this?

Answer 1

many questions so for first finish before start next use:

START /WAIT ...

for passing parameters to your app try advice of empty argument "" from here: Using the "start" command with parameters passed to the started program

Answer 2

There is no -P switch on the MD command. Even if there were, it is not needed. Windows already has a TEMP variable that should be used.

If the AppRemover6.exe program does not read from stdin, then redirecting a file to it will not work. Does AppRemove6.exe have any command line parameters that would tell it to read input from a file?

Try getting it to work directly from the cmd prompt. Create a file with the two items that must be entered.

=== response.txt
0
1

AppRemover6.exe <response.txt

If it were me, I would make these changes.

@ECHO OFF
XCOPY "\\mybigserver\Apps\AppCleanerUtils" "%TEMP%" /E /I
START /WAIT /D "%TEMP%\AppCleanerUtil6" AppRemover6.exe
START /D "%TEMP%\AppCleanerUtil6" PatchRegistry.reg
START /D "%TEMP%\C:\TEMP\AppCleanerUtil5" AppRemover5.exe
RMDIR /S /Q "%TEMP%\AppCleanerUtil6"
RMDIR /S /Q "%TEMP%\AppCleanerUtil5"