Coprophile required.

Any DOS/W98 experts here?

I've got a load of directories that apparently have the
"system" flag set so they're not visible when I try
to back them up. (DOS "dir /a" sees them)
Any idea how to reset the buggers?

 

In an earlier posting, wrote...

attrib *.* +a

or it might be

attrib *.* -a

from DOS of course.

attrib /? should give you a better idea.

HTH

 

Didn't think that worked on directories. My Van Wolverton book doesn't
say anything on it.

 

Thanks.
It doesn't take a wildcard.
I have to specify each directory individually.
That Mr. Gates is such a nice fellow....

 

In an earlier posting, wrote...

Just tried it out on t'other box that's still got win98 on. attrib
works on directories as well as files, on Win98 that is.

Makes a change me remembering stuff...

Of course that doesn't mean that the OP should be removing the "system"
flag without the aid of a safety net or failing that a pen and paper to
note the file names he changes.

 

I don't suppose this might work? It can change the read only attribute
for whole directories, for example.

http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/13/10/13-10-43.shtml

 

From the command line, try:

for %a in (*.*) do attrib -a %a

or in a batch file, try:

for %%a in (*.*) do attrib -a %%a

I'm not sure if for works with win98, but it's worth a look.

 

<snip>

Go into Windows explorer and navigate to the
directory you want to change the files.

Now do File > Properties

How hard is that?

 

heh. I still reckon the command line is quicker at getting things
done ;-)

 

Me too. As long as you know the commands you need without having to
look them up.

 

Aye. Still there's always the ask UKRM card.

 

The command you need is attrib -s *.* /s

The -s option re-sesets the system file flag. The /s option does it on all
files including subdirectories.

However, it may not work on hidden files - in which case you may need to
make them visible first

attrib -h *.* /s

Or you could try pratting around with setting more than one at once -
attrib -r -a -s -h *.* /s

Sometimes - you need to specifiy the name of the file/directory for the
attrib command to work (eg the hidden system dircetories used by Internet
Explorer. You can find out their names by using dir /a:h and then using
attrib -s -h filename.ext

I hope that helps.

 

Sean Doherty wrote:

Thanks for all the replies,
only one of which was any use.

The correct method of resetting the "system" flag
on a whole bunch of directories in DOS/W98 is:

dir /a >list.txt
send list.txt to a machine running a real OS.

awk ' $2 == "<DIR>" && $1 != "." && $1 \
!= ".." { print "attrib -s " $1 }' list.txt >doit
unix2dos doit doit.bat

copy doit.bat back to the crap machine.
doit

HTH,

Roger.

 

Ah. In that case, the answer is http://activestate.com