Hi, hope this is the right place to ask about windows XP dos batch files.

I fix home PCs for a living and want to make a foolproof backup procedure that runs overnight. I want the user to plug in a USB drive Thursday eve and take it away on Friday with the backup files on it.

Im using Acronis home for the actual backup and it makes backup files with a .tib format.
Acronis can be asked to run a batch file after it finishes its backup job.

I want the batch file to:
Make a new folder with todays date as the title on the USB drive.
Move the .tib file to the new folder.

The new folder name must be unique as they may have multiple backups on the USB drive.
The date should be in a DD-MM-YYYY format (may be easier to leave out the separators)

The problem is getting dos to create a folder with today's date as the name. Ive seen a few suggestions on the net from a chap named 'seamonkey' but I'm only so good with dos.

Please help, this will make me look really clever :D and hopefully will be a quick one for a dos wizz.

What have you come up with so far?

So far I have this. I don't take credit cos I pinched it from another site:

echo on
FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2 DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET mm=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=2,3 DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET dd=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=3,4 DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET yy=%%B
echo mm is: %mm%"dd is:"%dd%yy is %yy%
set Pdate=%mm%.%dd%.%yy%
echo %Pdate%

Ren C:\backup\new %Pdate%

This renames the folder with the month and the year but I need the day as well.
preferably in DD.MM.YYYY format.

I also found this:

echo on
set Pdate=%date:~3,2%.%date:~0,2%.%date:~-2,2%
echo %Pdate%

Ren C:\backup\new %Pdate%

Which also does the same thing but masterfully shortened.
Either one is fine but I just need the day shown.

Just for the record I have tried to understand the script and adapt it more myself but I've not had the training in advanced DOS. :(

Ive just realised that this may not make any sense to you because it will work for you in America but I always get 07.2007. I've tried fiddling with the code but I can't get it to show all three parts of the date. If I change the date format in my regional settings I get 31.2007 so its not like its not able to collect the info properly. It just won't use what its got to write it in the way that I want.
Don't understand why this is. Is it a bug in dos or something? :confused:

I actually found help for this on another site so id like to just wrap this up for anyone else who might be doing this in the future.

I am now using the following batch file which seems to be working well in clients machines.
Acronis runs this batch file once its finished doing its backup. I have included some reminders in there so I hope they make sense.


ECHO on

@REM Copy contents of premade C:\backup\new folder to the 'Backups' folder on the removable drive.

@REM /v verifies each file that is copied * /h copies hidden and attributed files
Cd C:\

XCOPY backup (insert removable drive letter here):\Backups\ /s /h /v

@REM Rename the folder with today's date. To make sure this works on any PC you may have
@REM to adapt this next bit. In dos type and examine 'echo %date%'. To make the 3 groups of
@REM count how many characters along the first character you want to show is.
@REM So for the day it will be '0' characters. Then choose how many characters after that
@REM you want to show. You want 2 characters so choose '2'. This last bit changes for the
@REM year dcepending on if you want to show 2 or 4 characters.

SET Pdate=%date:~0,2%.%date:~3,2%.%date:~6,4%
ECHO %Pdate%

REN (insert removable drive letter here):\Backups\new %Pdate%

@REM The next bit deletes any files in the backup folder on the C:\ root, leaving it empty for

Next time.

DEL Backup\new /q


ECHO off