i have looked high and low for an answer before i came in here peeps so please put me out of my misery coz i am about to scream ..... aaarrrgggg sorry

bat files have never given me probs before , but right now they are refusing to run

i have Vista HP and installed W7 ran it for a while and then completely re-installed Vista again with a format to make sure it was a clean install , all is well with no errors , its my HTPC so no virus software to bog it down and annoy me , its just a very clean system that isnt allowed to surf much either , if it does i am the only person with access and i go to few places with it , so it definately has no virus or malware

so i need to merge some files together and i have always created a bat from notepad and typed
copy /b filename.lol+filename2.lol result.lol ( example ) saved as a bat file , double click runs perfect and outputs my merged files in the same directory

now though with my clean install my created bat file just refuses to run , the bat file is placed in a folder where the files i need to merge are kept, it has my copy /b commands and filenames spelt correctly and it is saved as filename.bat , when double clicked i get the " open file -security warning " which i never used to have but hey ho and if i then select "run"  the dos box that normally stays on screen and shows the files in merge progress just disapears instantly ???

i have added a "pause" to the batch file to see what it reports before vanishing instantly and it says
CMD.EXE was started with the above path as the current directory.
UNC paths are not supported, Defaulting to windows directory
c:\windows>copy /b nameoffile.lol+nameoffile2.lol output.lol
The system cannot find the file specified

so why am i getting this error , this was a clean install with no anomolys on installation or in current useage

please help all i want to do is run a very simple bat file

What drive are you trying to run it on - if it is saying UNC paths are not supported it sounds like the location of the file you are trying to run it on does not have a drive letter, or is on another machine.

its on my c:/ drive ??? AAhhhh now then ...hmmm , what the heck have i done here !!

looks like i have foobard somehow , i have a shorcut to where my file is located , i just checked its properties and its in " network > username > public > public videos

what and how have i managed that !!! looks like somehow i have messed up here which is a bit confusing to me but hey ho user error is the root of all evils

so if i move the directory to my desktop i should be good to go , is that the general consensus ??

No its ok i have now fixed it ....

the shorcut i was previously using was taking me somehow through a network location but on the same PC , i have made a new shorcut from the directory and the bat file is now running

what i had done to get this wrong is a mystery to me but is now solved with your querry about location , much abliged for the nudge :)

How to use UNC paths in batch files (work great)

http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/02/simplify-unc-usage-in-command-line.html