Wel, many people think batch files are mostly things of the past. Sometimes, though, a well-conceived batch file is just the thing to automate the job you want to do.

Open up Notepad, write the code and click “Save As”. You can name the file anything you want, but ensure you change the view to “all files”, and put a .bat on end of the file, e.g. multimedia.bat. After all it should not be ending with ***.bat.txt

A few examples of what a batch file can do:

Load up a Program

We can use a batch file to load up any application or utility we might need to do a set task.

The command line to open up Winamp from the command line is:

Start "" "C:\Program Files\Winamp\winamp.exe"

Load up documents

We are not limited to launching only programs. We can extend batch files to open up documents.

Start "" "C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\document.doc"

Load up Websites

As well as launching programs and documents, we are able to launch our browser with a particular website. This could be handy if you want to load a TV guide from a website along with TV viewing software.

The command to make this happen is as below:

Start "" "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.inspectmygadget.com

Load up an Environment

If you want to launch multiple programs at once, repeat the above example for each program, document or website, e.g.

Start "" "C:\Program Files\Winamp\winamp.exe"
Start “” “C:\Program Files\TechSmith\SnagIt 8\SnagIt32.exe”
Start “” “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\winword.exe”

This batch file will launch Winamp, SnagIt and MS Word all at the same time.

Conclusion:

Batch files are not going to make your computing experience feel modern or high tech, but they have the potential to really speed up the loading of your applications.

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