How do I make a Windows batch script completely silent

Question

There has been variants of this question asked for generations  but despite writing some quite complicated Windows scripts  I can t seem to find out how to make them actually silent   The following is an excerpt from one of my current scripts    ECHO OFF SET scriptDirectory   dp0 COPY  scriptDirectory test bat  scriptDirectory test2 bat FOR  F   f IN   dir  B   scriptDirectory   noext    DO   del   scriptDirectory   f    ECHO   The result of this is   C  Temp gt  test bat         1 file s  copied  File Not Found Echo is off   C  Temp gt    Whereas the  1 file s  copied   is just annoying  the  File Not Found  makes the user think that something has gone wrong  which it hasn t - no files is fine

User · Answer

If you want that all normal output of your Batch script be silent (like in your example), the easiest way to do that is to run the Batch file with a redirection:

C:\Temp> test.bat >nul

This method does not require to modify a single line in the script and it still show error messages in the screen. To supress all the output, including error messages:

C:\Temp> test.bat >nul 2>&1

If your script have lines that produce output you want to appear in screen, perhaps will be simpler to add redirection to those lineas instead of all the lines you want to keep silent:

@ECHO OFF
SET scriptDirectory=%~dp0
COPY %scriptDirectory%test.bat %scriptDirectory%test2.bat
FOR /F %%f IN ('dir /B "%scriptDirectory%*.noext"') DO (
del "%scriptDirectory%%%f"
)
ECHO
REM Next line DO appear in the screen
ECHO Script completed >con

Antonio

User · Answer

Just add a  gt NUL at the end of the lines producing the messages   For example   COPY  scriptDirectory test bat  scriptDirectory test2 bat  gt NUL

User · Answer

You can redirect stdout to nul to hide it   COPY  scriptDirectory test bat  scriptDirectory test2 bat  gt nul   Just add  gt nul to the commands you want to hide the output from   Here you can see all the different ways of redirecting the std streams

User · Answer

To suppress output  use redirection to NUL   There are two kinds of output that console commands use    standard output  or stdout  standard error  or stderr    Of the two  stdout is used more often  both by internal commands  like copy  and by console utilities  or external commands  like find and others  as well as by third-party console programs    gt NUL suppresses the standard output and works fine e g  for suppressing the 1 file s  copied  message of the copy command  An alternative syntax is 1 gt NUL  So   COPY file1 file2  NUL   or  COPY file1 file2 1 NUL   or   NUL COPY file1 file2   or  1 NUL COPY file1 file2   suppresses all of COPY s standard output   To suppress error messages  which are typically printed to stderr  use 2 gt NUL instead  So  to suppress a File Not Found message that DEL prints when  well  the specified file is not found  just add 2 gt NUL either at the beginning or at the end of the command line   DEL file 2 NUL   or  2 NUL DEL file   Although sometimes it may be a better idea to actually verify whether the file exists before trying to delete it  like you are doing in your own solution  Note  however  that you don t need to delete the files one by one  using a loop  You can use a single command to delete the lot   IF EXIST   scriptDirectory   noext  DEL   scriptDirectory   noext

User · Answer

Copies a directory named html  amp  all its contents to a destination directory in silent mode   If the destination directory is not present it will still create it    echo off TITLE Copy Folder with Contents  set SOURCE C  labs set DESTINATION C  Users MyUser Desktop html  xcopy  SOURCE  html    DESTINATION     s  e  i  Y  gt NUL       S           Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones   E           Copies directories and subdirectories  including empty  ones  Same as  S  E  May be used to modify  T    I           If destination does not exist and copying more than one file  assumes that destination must be a directory   Y           Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an                   existing destination file

[windows] How do I make a Windows batch script completely silent?

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