Windows Batch File: How to run multiple batch commands?

Question

I'm trying to do some basic functionality using a batch file but the batch file opens cmd and runs the first command but then stops, ignoring the other commands. I've tried using START and CALL but neither I have had any success with, can anyone provide advice?

Batch file looks as below:

CD C:\Random\Madeup\Path
cmd.exe /K "npm install" 
CALL gulp-publish.BAT
CD C:\Random\Madeup\Path\mobile\dist
REN C:\Random\Madeup\Path\mobile\dist\config.xml config-publish.txt
PAUSE

Solution

The batch file opens cmd and runs the first command but then stops

cmd.exe /K "npm install" 

That is what /k is intended to do:

/K     Run Command and then return to the CMD prompt.
       This is useful for testing, to examine variables

It runs cmd and then immediately returns to the enclosing cmd shell, which aslo bypasses the rest of the commands in the batch file.

Try replacing that line with:

npm install

or:

call npm install

---

Further Reading

• An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line
• A categorized list of Windows CMD commands
• cmd - Start a new CMD shell and (optionally) run a command/executable program.

Comments

[Jeff Zeitlin]

Why are you executing npm via a separate cmd instance?

[Erlis D.]

I'm thinking since you open a new cmd instance, the other commands past that don't run as they try to install packages on the first cmd instance. Since gulp needs npm, it will return an error as for the first cmd instance npm is not installed. The commands on the first cmd instance still continue even if npm install was not finished installing on the second cmd instance. That's whats causing the issue in my opinion.