I am a fairly experienced user, and am just now getting interested in creating my own Batch Files. Mainly to automate running DIAGNOSTIC UTILITIES. I have taught other programming languages, but although I understand the basics of programming, I have never worked or used a language enough to be good at it. All that to ask this. I WOULD LOVE to have book/site suggestions for the absolute beginner, I want to learn, but I have to start small. Most of the stuff I read gets to complexed to quick. Any suggestions would be very appreciated, thanks and SALUTE! Personally I have found SS64 pretty good.

http://ss64.com/

Also you can browse the Google Groups alt.msdos.batch and alt.msdos.batch.nt

Each batch command has built in help you can access by typing the command followed by /?

e.g.

dir /?

Thank you so much for your reply, so sorry that I was slow to respond, I will try to do better:)
I used your advice and have learned a great deal. It is nice to have a place to share thoughts.
I have lots of computer knowledge, just not much of a CLI person. I am WORKING on changing that, thanks again for your help, SALUTE!