MS-DOS question

[Jim Jones]

> Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 10:36:39 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Chris Gray <cpgray at library.uwaterloo.ca>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Re: Ms-dos question
> Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.96.980419102751.28856A-100000 at library.uwaterloo.ca>
> 
> The "/Y" switch applies to the "copy" command (not the "del" command). You
> can use it to automatically overwrite one file with another without being
> prompted to confirm the overwrite.
> 

That is correct.  The "/Y" switch also works with deltree.  I think this is what
the user was actually doing at their other institution.

If you deltree netscape's cache it is recreated every time netscape starts a 
session.  it is part of its "self-healing" strategy which includes recreating
the following files if they too are missing:

The "cache" directory (whatever it is set to).

bookmark.htm (recreated as empty).

cert5.db

cookies.txt (recreated as empty).

key.db

netscape.hst (recreated as empty).



You could get the results you want by using either of the following commands:

deltree "c:\program files\netscape\navigator\cache" /Y

(the quotation marks allow you to use long file names and directory paths)

and then leave it up to nescape to recreate the directory or you could use:

deltree "c:\program files\netscape\navigator\cache" /Y
md "c:\program files\netscape\navigator\cache"

which allows you to take matters into your own hands.

Another little known snippet is that you can set your netscape.hst file to be 
read only which will not allow it to fill up with the ongoing browsing history
of your users.  A nice byproduct is that calling about:global in netscape will
only display a message the the history file is closed.



> Chris Gray
> Library Systems
> University of Waterloo
> 
> > We run resident Windows95 on an NT network.  I want to delete
> > all items in the cache every time the system is rebooted.  I have edited
> > the autoexec.bat file to include
> >
> > del c:\progra~1\netscape\naviga~1\cache\*.*
> >
> > I did this a long time ago at another institution and it worked well.
> > Following the *.* I included a switch such as (I can't remember exactly)
> >  |y
> > /y
> > \y
> >
> > Now I can't get this to work!  (At the other place we were
> > running 16 bit software).  Does anyone know the switch that
> > will tell DOS 'Yes' to delete all files in the cache rather
> > than prompting for each file?
> 
>

I hope some of this helps.

Jim Jones

System Coordinator/LAN Specialist
Ball State University Libraries
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306

Its nice to know that knowing DOS still comes in handy.  Batch programming is  
the glue that binds library systems together.