Suppose you have an .EXE and you want to check if it has Command-Line Options. How can one know if the .EXE has this ability. In my case I know that Nir Sofers WebBrowserPassView.exe has the ability to start it via cmd.exe and WebBrowserPassView.exe /stext output.txt. But how can I find out if I don't know?
The easiest way would be to use use ProcessExplorer but it would still require some searching.
Make sure your exe is running and open ProcessExplorer.
In ProcessExplorer find the name of your binary file and double click it to show properties.
Click the Strings tab.
Search down the list of string found in the binary file. Most strings will be garbage so they can be ignored. Search for anything that might possibly resemble a command line switch.
Test this switch from the command line and see if it does anything.
Note that it might be your binary simply has no command line switches.
For reference here is the above steps applied to the Chrome executable. The command line switches accepted by Chrome can be seen in the list:
Invoke it from the shell, with an argument like /? or --help. Those are the usual help switches.
Sysinternals has another tool you could use, Strings.exe
Example:
strings.exe c:\windows\system32\wuauclt.exe > %temp%\wuauclt_strings.txt && %temp%\wuauclt_strings.txt
Just use IDA PRO (https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/index.shtml) to disassemble the file, and search for some known command line option (using Search...Text) - in that section you will then typically see all the command line options - for the program (LIB2NIST.exe) in the screenshot below, for example, it shows a documented command line option (/COM2TAG) but also some undocumented ones, like /L. Hope this helps?
Really this is an extension to Marcin's answer.
But you could also try passing "rubbish" arguments to see if you get any errors back. Getting any response from the executable directly in the shell will mean that it is likely looking at the arguments you're passing, with an error response being close to a guarantee that it is.
Failing that you might have to directly ask the publishers/creators/owners... sniffing the binaries yourself just seems like far too much work for an end-user.
Unless the writer of the executable has specifically provided a way for you to display a list of all the command line switches that it offers, then there is no way of doing this.
As Marcin suggests, the typical switches for displaying all of the options are either /? or /help (some applications might prefer the Unix-style syntax, -? and -help, respectively). But those are just a common convention.
If those don't work, you're out of luck. You'll need to check the documentation for the application, or perhaps try decompiling the executable (if you know what you're looking for).
This is what I get from console on Windows 10:
C:\>find /?
Searches for a text string in a file or files.
FIND [/V] [/C] [/N] [/I] [/OFF[LINE]] "string" [[drive:][path]filename[ ...]]
/V Displays all lines NOT containing the specified string.
/C Displays only the count of lines containing the string.
/N Displays line numbers with the displayed lines.
/I Ignores the case of characters when searching for the string.
/OFF[LINE] Do not skip files with offline attribute set.
"string" Specifies the text string to find.
[drive:][path]filename
Specifies a file or files to search.
If a path is not specified, FIND searches the text typed at the prompt
or piped from another command.
Related
I would like to know if it is possible to have all the arguments of the command / exe "winword".
In the official docs the are some examples:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/command-line-switches-for-microsoft-office-products-079164cd-4ef5-4178-b235-441737deb3a6
But there not all the commands, for example, there is "/mFilePrintDefault" or "/mFileExit"
The objective being to be able to print a pdf without user action.
The Macro Commands are going to vary from one version to the next and of course you can start with your own macro file or use an AutoMacro.
The examples you give are 2 from part of the "Fixed Commands"
There are three lists available but I have no idea which commands function in a specific version as a command line macro, you would need to try them out.
ECMA-376 Office Open XML File Formats [ECMA-376], Fixed commands are here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_standards/ms-oe376/37bf80f7-1d74-47f6-8721-aa077cadca4d
ISO/IEC-29500 Office Open XML File Formats [ISO/IEC-29500:2012], Fixed commands are here
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_standards/ms-oi29500/1ecf33cf-3601-45f0-89fb-0ab824739343
And listed under Basic Types as https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_file_formats/ms-doc/e86aecb4-bb67-4de2-9b06-37771115f274
A common example to show using more than one command(s) in sequence is
"path to\winword.exe" "path and filename.docx" /q /n /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit
But your default printer needs to be a PDF one otherwise your macro needs to more complex
I would like to delete several commands from VSCode command palette's "recently used" section, but not clear the entire history. How?
So in Chrome's Omnibar, you can use Shift+del to delete a suggestion. But I cannot find an analogous shortcut in VSCode's command palette.
I also looked for a "meta-command" for this, but I only found Clear Command History in the command palette. I want something like Edit/Manage Command History instead.
Edit: a history file that I can directly edit (analogous to ~/.bash_history for Bash) would also do.
Okay, so this question was upvoted today, which brought it back to my attention. I decided to bite the bullet this time and dug into the nuts and bolts of VSCode's files and found where this history is stored.
TLDR
Modifying the history is doable (obviously, because it has to be stored somewhere), but it's not very practical at all. Unfortunately it will continue to be very difficult, until VSCode implements official support (which may be never). I recommend using the following method ONLY IF you absolutely need a history entry deleted.
The method
Note:
I'm using Code OSS (the debranded build of VSCode) on Linux. The method should be applicable to other OSes, but the specific commands and paths will be different.
This method works on VSCode 1.74.2, the latest version as of 2023-01-04. It may or may not work with future versions.
0. Exit VSCode completely
Obviously.
Check with your resource/task/process manager to make sure VSCode is completely killed. If you're not sure, just reboot.
1. Locate lastSyncglobalState.json
This file contains the command palette history data. On Linux it's located at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Code - OSS/User/sync/globalState/lastSyncglobalState.json. On Windows it's probably under a similar path in %APPDATA%. Not sure about MacOS. Copy this file to somewhere convenient.
If you are curious how I discovered this file, I did a search of a command I recently ran using rg in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Code - OSS/. Note that you have to search the "programmatic name" of the command, not its display name (e.g. rust-analyzer.reload, not rust-analyzer: Restart server).
2. Extract the relevant data
If you open up lastSyncglobalState.json with a text editor directly, you'll find a Russian doll of escaped JSON. Technically you can do the modification straight from here, but I'm not eating this 💩.
Fortunately jq makes this somewhat easier:
# This is Bash but I think it works on Windows CMD too? Not sure.
jq '.syncData.content | fromjson.storage."commandPalette.mru.cache".value | fromjson.entries' lastSyncglobalState.json > history.json
The extracted history.json should look something like this:
[
{
"key": "rust-analyzer.debug",
"value": 297
},
{
"key": "rust-analyzer.syntaxTree",
"value": 298
},
// more entries...
]
3. Modify
Copy history.json to history-new.json, and simply remove the entries you want to delete from history-new.json. Do not modify history.json; we will need it in a bit.
Check that it's still valid JSON after your edits; in particular make sure that you have not left a trailing comma in the array.
4. Write back
The responsible way to do this is to perform the inverse of step 2, starting from the bottom up, update a field, json-encode, then update the field one level up, json-encode again, etc, until we get to the top level. But that's an enormous pain in the arse to do with jq.
Much easier I think, simply double (triple?) json-encode history-new.json, and perform a textual replacement. This is where the original history.json comes in handy:
# In lastSyncglobalState.json, replace the output of...
jq 'tojson | tojson' history.json
# with the output of...
jq 'tojson | tojson' history-new.json
Note that since the output of jq is quoted, it's necessary to remove the outmost layer of quotes (") on both the search string and the replace string. With rg we can automate this:
jq 'tojson | tojson' history.json | rg '^"(.+)"$' -r '$1'
jq 'tojson | tojson' history-new.json | rg '^"(.+)"$' -r '$1'
Of course there's nothing wrong with doing it manually, or with using sed instead if you want to. Again, just be careful you're not creating invalid JSON.
5. Copy back into VSCode directory
Honestly, you probably want to make a backup of the entire $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Code - OSS/ directory (or whatever it is on your machine) before doing this. It's probably big I know, but I'm not sure what crazy thing VSCode will do if it finds lastSyncglobalState.json unparseable. Better be safe than sorry.
After you've done that, just copy your modified lastSyncglobalState.json back into $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Code - OSS/User/sync/globalState/lastSyncglobalState.json and voila.
VSCode terminal uses external shell. For linux the default shell it's bash, for windows it's powershell.
If your terminal shell is powershell, go to C:\Users\john\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\PSReadline on your file explorer
Visit this link for more details, if the above does not help.
I am writing an mIRC script for a bot account to read a random line of text from a text file when a user keys in !read. As of now, when any user types !read, absolutely nothing happens. I have other commands set to work on TEXT commands, but this one seems to be the most puzzling, as I'm referencing a document rather than putting everything into the script itself.
on *:TEXT:!text:#: {
$read(C:\Program Files (x86)\mIRC\8Ball.txt,n)
}
My file is titled 8Ball.txt. What could be going wrong here?
Got it.
echo -a $read(C:\Users\Christopher\Desktop\8Ball.txt,n)
Changing the directory ended up doing it...it wasn't liking the location for some reason...I either blame me putting a / in front of echo, or I blame the space in Program Files (x86)
Your best move is to use the relative mIRC dir identifier $mircdir combing it with $qt which adds enclosing quotes.
$qt($+($mircdir,8Ball.txt))
Output:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\mIRC\8Ball.txt"
This way, you won't need to wonder why the script break when you changed the mIRC directory a year after.
I have been working on a project that uses a program called TeraTerm to send commands to a TV via a serial port. I have discovered that when I open the program manually after a reboot, I have to open the correct port and then send the .dat command file several times before it actually takes (Turns off the TV).
The commands I am using are from this page.
Anyway, I ran the command
TTERMPRO /C=7 /DS /FD=C:\Commands\TurnOffTest3.dat /FD=C:\Commands\TurnOffTest3.dat /FD=C:\Commands\TurnOffTest3.dat
hoping that it would allow me to send the file multiple times. The TeraTerm window did open as usual, but the file was either not sent or had no effect.
There is a very high likelyhood that I am sending the commands incorrectly, as I am very new to the command prompt itself. Is there a way that I can call the command to send a file multiple times? If I am not interpreting the interface given on the website correctly or even if the way I am using the commands is just flat out wrong, any and all advice is welcome.
Side note: yes, I am sure that the command file that I am sending is the correct one because when I send the file manually (i. e. use the GUI) the TV turns off as expected.
EDIT: I have tried sending the file with and without quotes in its name.
for /L %G in (1,1,3) do TTERMPRO …
Read more in FOR command:
If you are using the FOR command at the command line rather than
in a batch program, use just one percent sign: %G instead of
%%G.
Noticed in help information about system commands for /? as well: To use the FOR command in a batch program, specify %%variable instead of %variable. Variable names are case sensitive, so %i is different from %I.
==> for /?
Runs a specified command for each file in a set of files.
FOR %variable IN (set) DO command [command-parameters]
%variable Specifies a single letter replaceable parameter.
(set) Specifies a set of one or more files. Wildcards may be used.
command Specifies the command to carry out for each file.
command-parameters
Specifies parameters or switches for the specified command.
To use the FOR command in a batch program, specify %%variable instead
of %variable. Variable names are case sensitive, so %i is different
from %I.
…
Further reading in Syntax: Escape Characters, Delimiters and Quotes
I have both Sybase and MSFT SQL Servers installed. There is a time when Sybase interferes with MS SQL because they have they have some overlapping commands.
So, I need two scripts:
A) When runs, script A backs up the current path, grabs all paths that contain sybase or SYBASE or SyBASE (you get the point) in them and move them all at the very end of the path, while preserving the order.
B) When it runs, script B restores the path from back-up.
Both script a and script b should affect the path immediately. So, if a.bat that calls patha.ps1, pathb.ps1 looks like so:
#REM Old path here
call patha.ps1
#REM At this point the effective path should be different.
call pathb.ps1
#REM Effective old path again
Please let me know if this does not make sense. I am not sure if call command is the best one to use.
I have never used P.S. before. I can try to formulate the same thing in Python (I know S.O. users tend to ask for "What have you tried so far"). Well, at this point I am VERY slow at writing anything in Power Shell language.
Please help.
First of all: call will be of no use here as you are apparently writing a batch file and PowerShell scripts have no association to run them by default. call is for batch files or subroutines.
Secondly, any PowerShell script you call from a batch file cannot change environment variables of the caller's environment. That's a fundamental property of how processes behave and since you are calling another process, this is never going to work.
I'm not so sure why you are even using a batch file here in the first place if you have PowerShell. You might just as well solve this in PowerShell completely.
However, what I get from your problem is that the best way to resolve this is probably the following: Create two batch files that each set the PATH appropriately. You can probably leave out both the MSSQL and Sybase paths from your usual PATH and add them solely in the batch files. Then create shortcuts to
cmd /k set_mssql_path.cmd
and
cmd /k set_sybase_path.cmd
each of which now is a shortcut to a shell to work with the appropriate database's tools. This is how the Visual Studio Command Prompt works and it's probably the cleanest solution you have. You can use the color and prompt commands in those batches to make the two different shells distinct so you always know what environment you have. For example the following two lines will color the console white on blue and set a prompt indicating MSSQL:
color 1f
prompt MSSQL$S$P$G
This can be quite handy, actually.
Generally, trying to rearrange the PATH environment variable isn't exactly easy. While you could trivially split at a ; this will fail for paths that itself contain a semicolon (and which need to be quoted then). Even in PowerShell this will take a while to get right so I think creating shortcuts specific to the tools is probably the nicest way to deal with this.