Archive for March, 2009

Batch files and portions of file parameter

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

The following table outlines how you can modify the passed parameter.

Parameter Description
%1 The normal parameter.
%~f1 Expands %1 to a fully qualified pathname. If you passed only a filename from the current directory, this parameter would also expand to the drive or directory.
%~d1 Extracts the drive letter from %1.
%~p1 Extracts the path from %1.
%~n1 Extracts the filename from %1, without the extension.
%~x1 Extracts the file extension from %1.
%~s1 Changes the n and x options’ meanings to reference the short name. You would therefore use
%~sn1 for the short filename and %~sx1 for the short extension.

The following table shows how you can combine some of the parameters.

Parameter Description
%~dp1 Expands %1 to a drive letter and path only.
%~sp1 For short path.
%~nx1 Expands %1 to a filename and extension only.

Guest Mode for Windows

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Windows 7 will be building this functionality in, but it is currently available for XP and Vista.

Microsoft has made available SteadyState. This program allows you to create a user, and control what they have access to. It also allows the user’s changes to be rolled back when they logoff.

Great for the kids, or guests that want to use your machine to check their email, but you don’t want them making any accidental changes to your system.