Display a message dialog after a command with a batch script?

Question

I am making batch scripts for various purposes, and want to make it so that after a command is completed, a message dialog is displayed that will declare the results.

For instance, if I make a script delete a specific object, I would like it to display a user-defined dialog. I would prefer to use this format for the window title and text values:

x=msgbox("%MESSAGE%" ,0, "%TITLE%")

How can I add this (above) to my script to be displayed after the task (below) is complete?

rmdir "%TARGETPATH%

Answer 1

You can use command redirection with && or & to execute a proceeding command after the first command completes. You can set it to execute the proceeding command after the first command was successful, or directly after the first command executes regardless of the first command result.

The trick is to have the batch script put the VB msgBox function and applicable values it uses into a temp script that will later be executed via wscript.

This should all work out of the box without installing any third party tools so it's Windows native.

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Batch Script

Note: You will need to use the syntax of SET x=msgbox "%TITLE%",0,"%MESSAGE%" rather than what you have for this to work but that's a minor adjustment only.

@ECHO ON

:Routine1
SET TARGETPATH=C:\Path\Folder
SET COMMAND=rmdir "%TARGETPATH%
SET TITLE=This is my message title
SET MESSAGE=This is my message body
SET tmpmsgbox=%temp%\~tmpmsgbox.vbs
SET x=msgbox "%MESSAGE%",0,"%TITLE%"
ECHO %x%>"%tmpmsgbox%"
%COMMAND% && WSCRIPT "%tmpmsgbox%"
EXIT

Redirection

   commandA &  commandB      Run commandA and then run commandB
   commandA && commandB      Run commandA, if it succeeds then run commandB

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Further Resources

• MsgBox
• Wscript
• Redirection