windows 7 - Using START /wait with MozBackup batch scripts

06
2014-04
  • Ugo

    OS: Windows 7 64-bit

    I have three batch files.

    1. FirefoxBackup.bat
    2. ThunderbirdBackup.bat
    3. Firefox_Thunderbird_Backup.bat

    The script inside Firefox_Thunderbird_Backup.bat is shown below:

    @echo off
@echo Welcome to Firefox and Thunderbird Automated Backup!
CALL "D:\Scripts\FirefoxBackup.bat"
CALL "D:\Scripts\ThunderbirdBackup.bat"

    The script inside FirefoxBackup.bat file is very similar to ThunderbirdBackup.bat. Kindly see Firefox backup batch script below:

    @echo off
@echo Firefox backup will begin shortly!

echo.
@echo Deleting old Firefox backup file(s)...
@echo off
DEL /F "D:\Mozilla Products Backups\Firefox*.pcv"
TIMEOUT /T 2 /NOBREAK

echo.
@echo off
@echo Firefox is quitting...
TIMEOUT /T 2 /NOBREAK

@echo off
@echo off tasklist /nh /fi "imagename eq firefox.exe" | find /i "firefox.exe" >nul && ( taskkill /f /im firefox.exe /T )
TIMEOUT /T 3 /NOBREAK

echo.
@echo Firefox backup is in progress!
START "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\MozBackup\MozBackup.exe" "D:\Scripts\Default.firefoxprofile"
TIMEOUT /T 15 /NOBREAK

echo.
@echo Firefox backup successful!
echo.

@echo Firefox has re-launched.
echo.
START "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"

    The part I'm interested in is:

    START "" "C:\Program Files\MozBackup\MozBackup.exe" "D:\Scripts\Default.firefoxprofile"
TIMEOUT /T 15 /NOBREAK

    Explanation on the above code snippet:

    MozBackup.exe is started along with a parameter. This parameter is the Default.firefoxprofilefile which MozBackup understands, and can be manually edited as per the instructions here.

    Intentions:

    I'd like to get rid of the manual waiting time (15s) and make use of START /wait. This way, Firefox re-launches only after Mozbackup finishes executing. I am not sure how to go about this considering there are already 3 parameters, namely "", C:\Program Files\MozBackup\MozBackup.exe, and D:\Default.firefoxprofile. Is it possible to achieve that at all anyway?

    Thank you!

    • Answers
  • Ugo

    The answer was much simpler than I expected. I just needed to use the /W switch. I noticed that the /WAIT switch does not work.

    Here's the solution:

    START /W "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\MozBackup\MozBackup.exe" "D:\Scripts\Default.firefoxprofile"
START /W /B "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"

    What happens now is that Firefox will re-launch only after MozBackup has finished executing. I will also apply this to Thunderbird's backup script. Thank you for reading and I hope this backup script is useful to someone in the future :)

    Reference


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  • asattar

    I've a simple batch script npp.bat to open a file in Notepad++

    "C:\Program Files\(x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" %1

    Notepad++ launches with the file when I run npp <file_name&gt> but the command window waits for the application to exit. I don't want it to wait.


    • Related Answers
  • Bobby

    Use start instead:

    start "" "command here"

    Edit: Do not miss the first pair of empty quotes, this is the title of the process/window.

    start <title> <command> <parameters>

    See start /? for further details.

  • Nithin

    I wanted to be able to do "npp file.txt" on the command prompt and be able to edit files using Notepad++. For this, I created a new folder, added it to Windows PATH, and created a file there called npp.bat with the following content:

    @echo off
start "" "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" %1

    Very useful when I'm working on the console and need to edit a file.

  • ukanth

    @Bobby method should work, If you directly calls the batch script ( double click ), the method will open a new command window. Instead use the following,

    @echo off
start "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" blah.txt
cls
exit

    If you replace blah.txt with %1, then you should pass the argument when you call the batch file.