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As I understand it, .bat is the old 16-bit naming convention, and .cmd is for 32-bit Windows, i.e., starting with NT. But I continue to see .bat files everywhere, and they seem to work exactly the same using either suffix. Assuming that my code will never need to run on anything older than NT, does it really matter which way I name my batch files, or is there some gotcha awaiting me by using the wrong suffix?
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The advantages of using batch files are the ease of writing them, the ability to edit the files without compiling anything, their cross-compatibility across Windows NT Operating Systems and their inherent ability to manipulate file systems due to their basis on MS-DOS.
A BAT file is known as a batch file runs with DOS and all versions of Windows, under cmd.exe. It consists of a series of line commands in plain text to be executed by the command-line interpreter to perform different tasks, such as running maintenance utilities within Windows or starting typical programs.
A batch file is a script file that stores commands to be executed in a serial order. It helps automate routine tasks without requiring user input or intervention. Some common applications of batch files include loading programs, running multiple processes or performing repetitive actions in a sequence in the system.
In Windows, the batch file is a file that stores commands in a serial order. The command line interpreter takes the file as an input and executes in the same order. A batch file is simply a text file saved with the .bat file extension.
From this news group posting by Mark Zbikowski himself:
The differences between .CMD and .BAT as far as CMD.EXE is concerned are: With extensions enabled, PATH/APPEND/PROMPT/SET/ASSOC in .CMD files will set ERRORLEVEL regardless of error. .BAT sets ERRORLEVEL only on errors.
In other words, if ERRORLEVEL is set to non-0 and then you run one of those commands, the resulting ERRORLEVEL will be:
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