i'm writing a script that needs to call another script called "backup.bat". when backup.bat is invoked, it asks for a password which I want to hardcode in my script so I can run it in background without invoking the user. how can I do this?

Post the code for the 2 scripts. "Computer security." — Oxymoron

wrapper script: cd "C:\Program Files\Product group\Product name" backupAllData.bat -backup original script output: Dec 12, 2007 3:14:19 PM com.product.BackupTool main INFO: args[0]=-backup Enter the user's password: ******** this is the point where the user is supposed to enter the password - i want to hardcode this part backupAllData.bat is just invoking a java classfile and i dont have access to the code, only the class file and the script invoking the classfile I've modified product names/titles for security purposes

If the program doesn't have a switch to allow you to script it, I don't think you could do it with built-in commands. You could probably use expect.exe to accomplish what you need. If you have trouble learning the syntax of expect, try autoexpect.exe which records what you do, in your case inputting a password and such, and saves it in an expect script. You will have to specify the UNC path to the exe on a server in your batch script: \\server\share\expect.exe [params] Unless you push out the exe to your clients with a GPO. "Computer security." — Oxymoron

(echo 3 echo 1 echo 2) | sort I'm not saying this method would work, but it's probably your best chance.