[batch-file] Echo off but messages are displayed

I turned off echo in bat file.

@echo off

then I do something like this

...
echo %INSTALL_PATH%
if exist %INSTALL_PATH%(
echo 222
...
)

and I get:

The system cannot find the path specified.

message between those two echos.

What can be the reason of this message and why message ignores echo off?

"echo off" is not ignored. "echo off" means that you do not want the commands echoed, it does not say anything about the errors produced by the commands.

The lines you showed us look okay, so the problem is probably not there. So, please show us more lines. Also, please show us the exact value of INSTALL_PATH.

For me this issue was caused by the file encoding format being wrong. I used another editor and it was saved as UTF-8-BOM so the very first line I had was @echo off but there was a hidden character in the front of it.

So I changed the encoding to plain old ANSI text, and then the issue went away.

@echo off
// quote the path or else it won't work if there are spaces in the path
SET INSTALL_PATH="c:\\etc etc\\test";
if exist %INSTALL_PATH% (
   //
   echo 222;
)

Save this as *.bat file and see differences

:: print echo command and its output
echo 1

:: does not print echo command just its output
@echo 2

:: print dir command but not its output
dir > null

:: does not print dir command nor its output
@dir c:\ > null

:: does not print echo (and all other commands) but print its output
@echo off
echo 3

@echo on
REM this comment will appear in console if 'echo off' was not set

@set /p pressedKey=Press any key to exit