Microsoft Backticks

Windows batch files kind of suck, but I think you may be able to output the program to a file with the >> [filename] operator, then bring it back into the script with << [filename], or use that to self-write a batch file that is then called. It's not really an answer but is one area where I'd look.

You might consider just shipping your script with a Windows version of bash. It'll make your life a lot easier.

Sad to say, but Windows batch language is not much enhanced from its roots in MS-DOS, when it was an operating system that fit on a 360 kb floppy. If you want to do anything substantial, you'll have to use an external http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/scriptinga.asp or command shell. The above suggestion about using a windows implementation of the BASH shell is a good one. If you don't want Microsoft to be dissapointed with you, you can use http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/script56/html/wsoriWindowsScriptHost.asp.

from a command prompt "ping yahoo.com > c:\ping.txt" works. It does not work from the Run box. You want to specify the directory path to the save location. I haven't taken the time to figure out how Windows selects what directory is current, but it's certainly not always the one I would expect.

The trick used by many people is setting an environment variable, and then using that. There is just no other variable available to use in a batch file. Here's an example from a batch file I have on a Win2000 machine to get the date. ------------------------------------------------------------- @echo off SET %%PATH = "c:\winnt\system32\" For /f "tokens=1-7 delims=:/-, " %%i in ('echo exit^|cmd /q /k"prompt $D $T"') do ( For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/-,() skip=1" %%a in ('echo.^|date') do ( set dow=%%i set %%a=%%j set %%b=%%k set %%c=%%l set hh=%%m set min=%%n set ss=%%o ) ) SET YY=%YY:~2,2% REM Let's see the result. For %%i in (dow dd mm yy hh min ss) do set %%i