making a batch file to install a program

Question

One of my friend told me that he used a batch program to install a java program on the machine,that placed the necessary files in a particular directory and also planted a shortcut on the desktop. How can it be done ? If there are tutorials that teach this please link me to them

Answer 1

All you need to do is use some basic windows commands to make this work. I'm not going to write the script for you but I can point you in the right direction. A batch script on windows is a simple text file ending with the .bat extension. You can use any command typically available on the windows command prompt (AKA cmd.exe ). A good starting point is learning how to move and copy files around so you want to take a look at the commands by the same name on the Command-line reference from Microsoft . There is also a handy guide linked on the same page to batch files and how they work .

The documentation linked is for Widows XP and the syntax of the commands should be back and forwards compatible with other Windows versions.

Answer 2

This code is a simple batch script. Customize this code.

Code:

@echo off
color f0
:: overwrite your program name after the '=' ::
set ProgramNameHere=ProgramNameHere
goto start
:start
cd/
cd users
cd %username%
cd desktop
md %ProgramNameHere%
:: overwrite your file path on the 'DATA' ::
:: overwrite your file name on the 'file1', 'file2'...
:: overwritw your file name after the 'extracting'.
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file1.txt
echo extracting file 1
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file2.txt
echo extracting file 2
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file3.txt
echo extracting file 3
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file4.txt
echo extracting file 4
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file5.txt
echo extracting file 5
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file6.txt
echo extracting file 6
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file7.txt
echo extracting file 7
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file8.txt
echo extracting file 8
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file9.txt
echo extracting file 9
ping localhost>nul
echo DATA>>C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop\%programNameHere%\file10.txt
echo extracting file 10
ping localhost>nul
goto exit

:exit
exit

Answer 3

Installing a Java program is the same thing as installing a ... program ;-) You can create a batch installer from scratch with a .bat file or use an installer builder tool. I use NSIS because it's free and simple to use ... but there's others.

You also may want to build an .exe instead of a jar file (sometime, windows open the jar archives instead of launching java). I use Launch4J to wrap my java application in a .exe file.

Answer 4

If the app. has a GUI, install/launch it using Java Web Start . It works on Windows, OS X & *nix, and can install both desktop shortcuts and menu items to launch the app. on platforms that support such things.

JWS is supported & supplied by Oracle.