I tried to find something on the internet, but i came up empty handed. I need some batch scripting help. This is the situation: I have *.zip files in a directory, i need to find the newest file and do a command and delete the rest. i can get the list: dir /b /O:-d >> list.dat newest file is first. but how to process it this list? Oh and it must be compatible with windows 9x/me and nt/xp versions, or as much as possible

Hi This would work for both systems if you use the program Change.com program from PC Magazine. It works in XP,DOS and Win9?. What you want is easy in XP, but not Win9?. If you can't find it, I will EMail it to you. -------------------------- CHANGE Michael J. Mefford Purpose Performs a rapid search-and-replace operation for text strings and/or ASCII decimal codes throughout a file of maximum 40,000-byte length. Format CHANGE filespec findstring replacestring Examples CHANGE NOGOSSIP.ART "Miss Jones" "Mrs. Smith" CHANGE \COMM\MCI.B16 13,10 "" ----- @echo off dir *.zip /b /o-d > File1.txt find /n /v "" File1.txt > File2.txt change File2.txt "[1]" "set Latest=" > nul type File2.txt | find "set" > Latest.bat call Latest.bat echo Latest=%Latest% ren %Latest% Latest.bak if exist *.zip del *.zip ren Latest.bak %Latest% del File?.txt del Latest.bat

dt10, Kewl If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Hi Mechanix From you that's a really a compliment. Thanks