Batch File was unexpected at this time

Question

I am getting this error        was unexpected at this time   The error occurs after accepting the value of a  I tried and checked for null values that could cause such a problem   but was unsuccessful   echo off cls title  USB Wizard  echo What do you want to do  echo 1 Enable Disable USB Storage Devices  echo 2 Enable Disable Writing Data onto USB Storage  echo 3  Yet to come    set  a  globalparam1   goto  aCheck  aPrompt set  p  a Enter Choice     aCheck if   a       goto  aPrompt echo  a   IF  a   2   title USB WRITE LOCK echo What do you want to do  echo 1 Apply USB Write Protection echo 2 Remove USB Write Protection   param1 set  param1  globalparam2   goto  param1Check  param1Prompt set  p  param1 Enter Choice     param1Check if   param1       goto  param1Prompt  if  param1   1   REG ADD HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control StorageDevicePolicies   v WriteProtect  t REG DWORD  d 00000001  echo USB Write is Locked    if  param1   2   REG ADD HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control StorageDevicePolicies   v WriteProtect  t REG DWORD  d 00000000 echo USB Write is Unlocked       pause

User · Answer

Oh  dear  A few little problems     As pointed out by others  you need to quote to protect against empty space-containing entries  and use the  delayed expansion  facility   Two other matters of which you should be aware   First  set p will assign a user-input value to a variable  That s not news - but the gotcha is that pressing enter in response will leave the variable UNCHANGED - it will not ASSIGN a zero-length string to the variable  hence deleting the variable from the environment   The safe method is    set  var    set  p var    That is  of course  if you don t WANT enter to repeat the existing value  Another useful form is   set  var default   set  p var    or   set  var default   set  p  var   var       which prompts with the default value   var  if in a block statement with delayedexpansion   Second issue is that on some Windows versions  although W7 appears to  fix  this issue  ANY label - including a    comment  which is a broken-label  will terminate any  block  - that is  parenthesised compound statement

User · Answer

You are getting that error because when the param1 if statements are evaluated  param is always null due to being scoped variables without delayed expansion   When parentheses are used  all the commands and variables within those parentheses are expanded   And at that time  param1 has no value making the if statements invalid   When using delayed expansion  the variables are only expanded when the command is actually called   Also I recommend using if not defined command to determine if a variable is set    echo off setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion cls title  USB Wizard  echo What do you want to do  echo 1 Enable Disable USB Storage Devices  echo 2 Enable Disable Writing Data onto USB Storage  echo 3  Yet to come    set  a  globalparam1   goto  aCheck  aPrompt set  p  a Enter Choice     aCheck if not defined a goto  aPrompt echo  a   IF   a     2        title USB WRITE LOCK     echo What do you want to do      echo 1 Apply USB Write Protection     echo 2 Remove USB Write Protection        param1     set  param1  globalparam2       goto  param1Check      param1Prompt     set  p  param1 Enter Choice         param1Check     if not defined param1 goto  param1Prompt     echo  param1       if   param1     1            REG ADD HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control StorageDevicePolicies   v WriteProtect  t REG DWORD  d 00000001          echo USB Write is Locked            if   param1     2            REG ADD HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control StorageDevicePolicies   v WriteProtect  t REG DWORD  d 00000000         echo USB Write is Unlocked           pause endlocal

User · Answer

you need double quotes in all your three if statements  eg    IF   a     2         echo OFF  amp SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION cls title  USB Wizard  echo What do you want to do  echo 1 Enable Disable USB Storage Devices  echo 2 Enable Disable Writing Data onto USB Storage  echo 3  Yet to come     set  a  globalparam1   goto  aCheck  aPrompt set  p  a Enter Choice     aCheck if   a       goto  aPrompt echo  a   IF   a     2        title USB WRITE LOCK     echo What do you want to do      echo 1 Apply USB Write Protection     echo 2 Remove USB Write Protection       param1     set  param1  globalparam2       goto  param1Check      param1Prompt     set  p  param1 Enter Choice         param1Check     if   param1       goto  param1Prompt      if   param1     1             REG ADD HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control StorageDevicePolicies   v WriteProtect  t REG DWORD  d 00000001          USB Write is Locked            if   param1     2             REG ADD HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control StorageDevicePolicies   v WriteProtect  t REG DWORD  d 00000000          USB Write is Unlocked          pause

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