looking for an answer to a Dos question

[mipak]

I'm using W7 Professional 64bit and sometimes I have the need to use a Dos command.

I use Microsoft Publisher 2002 and, despite it's age, it works perfectly and gives me no problems. When using Publisher and want to save the work I've been doing, every time I press 'save', the files go to the default folder which is c:\users\name\my documents. Now I never use that route, preferring to use another location. I assume that the coding for Microsoft's choice of default is probably deeply embedded in W7 and is way beyond my knowledge of trying to interfere with it. Would be nice to change the default though.

Anyway, because of this and after some thought, my plan is to continue to use MS's default folder and also write a small Dos programme that would allow me to move whatever files were in 'my documents' to another more suitable location with a single click. The programme I've come up with is as follows:
echo off
move c:\users\name\"my documents"\*.pub g:\00-preparation\02-writing

All the above 5 folders are already set in place.

The trouble is, it won't activate so it's obvious I've done something wrong somewhere along the line despite my attempts to make it work. Sadly, my knowledge of Dos is somewhat lacking

If there is anyone with Dos experience able to help please, I'd be very grateful.
My thanks in advance.

 

[strollin]

I don't have access to MS Publisher 2002 but I believe the default save location is configurable since other MS Office products I have used have had that ability. Try looking to see if there is an Options link somewhere (perhaps in the File menu). Look for Save under Options and you may find a setting for Default Save location.

Maybe someone else has access to Publisher and can tell you the exact location of the setting.

Good luck!

 

[samuria]

Use built in robocopy to copy or mirror


robocopy c:\docs d:\doc /mir



TechNet Wiki

 

[iko22]

The syntax of the command is incorrect. Put the double quotes round the pathname and file extension so that it looks like this:
move "c:\users\name\my documents\*.pub" g:\00-preparation\02-writing

 

[dg1261]

I use Microsoft Publisher 2002 and [...] every time I press 'save', the files go to the default folder which is c:\users\name\my documents. Now I never use that route, preferring to use another location. I assume that the coding for Microsoft's choice of default is probably deeply embedded in W7 and is way beyond my knowledge of trying to interfere with it. Would be nice to change the default though.

Easily done. In the 2002 version of Publisher, just change the default file location under Tools->Options:

 

[mipak]

sorry for the delay ....
had an unexpected stay in hospital ...

@ strollin ... good suggestion but as i started to search for 'options', i had a reply from dg1261 who gave me the complete answer starting in the TOOLS tab. All I had to do was to go into TOOLS > OPTIONS > then scroll down to FILE LOCATIONS. The answer had been staring me in the face for years! My thanks to both of you.

@ samuria ... I had never heard of the DOS command robocopy or of its switch /mir so deceided to investigate. Read a few pages in Google that implied that it might not be a safe thing to to do so I backed off on the side of caution. My thanks to you as well but I've made a note of the command and will get more info.

@ iko22 ... your suggestion interested me very much and I noticed my mistake immediately so I made the correction in the batch file, saved it and hit enter. Nothing happened. After running a lot of tests, I still got no responses despite even using SAVE for a files in the same folder then I thought that it might be to do with my W7 which in turn, had 2 different 'bit' ratings. So I Googled the question, 'Is DOS compatiable with W7 Professional 64-bit?' which generated quite a lot of pages. The first one said that whilst the 32-bit is compatiable, 64-bit is not. On reading over the other pages, I found that it was still possible but appeared to be a little complicated so I stopped ... for now anyway.

Returning to @ dg1261's suggestion, I changed the default setting to my own choice of folder but it didn't work. I'll have to investigate and let you know.

My thanks to all of you ... I'll continue investigating particularly regarding the last two suggestions.

Michael ...

 

[samuria]

Robocopy is 109% safe it's made by ms and has been around for years designed for servers

 

[iko22]

Hello. Hope you are well,

I'm using W7 Professional 64bit and sometimes I have the need to use a Dos command.

...

Anyway, ..., my plan is to continue to use MS's default folder and also write a small Dos programme that would allow me to move whatever files were in 'my documents' to another more suitable location with a single click. The programme I've come up with is as follows:
echo off
move c:\users\name\"my documents"\*.pub g:\00-preparation\02-writing

All the above 5 folders are already set in place.

The trouble is, it won't activate so it's obvious I've done something wrong somewhere along the line despite my attempts to make it work. Sadly, my knowledge of Dos is somewhat lacking

If there is anyone with Dos experience able to help please, I'd be very grateful.
My thanks in advance.

@ iko22 ... your suggestion interested me very much and I noticed my mistake immediately so I made the correction in the batch file, saved it and hit enter. Nothing happened. After running a lot of tests, I still got no responses despite even using SAVE for a files in the same folder then I thought that it might be to do with my W7 which in turn, had 2 different 'bit' ratings. So I Googled the question, 'Is DOS compatiable with W7 Professional 64-bit?' which generated quite a lot of pages. The first one said that whilst the 32-bit is compatiable, 64-bit is not. On reading over the other pages, I found that it was still possible but appeared to be a little complicated so I stopped ... for now anyway.

1) If you delete or comment out the "echo off" then you might see some error messages that can help you diagnose what is wrong with the commands that the batch file is issuing.
When you say "nothing happened" I am thinking that this is because your inclusion of "echo off" is suppressing any message that the command may issue.

2) Although people know what you mean by "DOS program", the term "DOS" or "Disk Operating System" is no longer the correct term under Windows. The correct term is now "Command Prompt", "Elevated Command Prompt", or "CMD" for short.
The Command Prompt is a type of Command-line Interface that is backward compatible with DOS, but additionally includes new features with each new Edition of Windows.
The "bitness" of the Operating System/Processor(s) does not matter here, as all 32-bit instructions are included in the 64-bit versions of the Software/Hardware. So, you should be able to Move files using a 64-bit OS, that had been created under a 32-bit OS.

I hope that helps.