Show a popup/message box from a Windows batch file

Question

Is there a way to display a message box from a batch file (similar to how xmessage can be used from bash-scripts in Linux)?

Answer 1

Try :

Msg * "insert your message here" 

If you are using Windows XP's command.com, this will open a message box.

Opening a new cmd window isn't quite what you were asking for, I gather. You could also use VBScript, and use this with your .bat file. You would open it from the bat file with this command:

cd C:\"location of vbscript"

What this does is change the directory command.com will search for files from, then on the next line:

"insert name of your vbscript here".vbs

Then you create a new Notepad document, type in

<script type="text/vbscript">
    MsgBox "your text here"
</script>

You would then save this as a .vbs file (by putting ".vbs" at the end of the filename), save as "All Files" in the drop down box below the file name (so it doesn't save as .txt), then click Save!

Answer 2

First of all, DOS has nothing to do with it, you probably want a Windows command line solution (again: no DOS, pure Windows, just not a Window, but a Console).

You can either use the VBScript method provided by boflynn or you can mis-use net send or msg. net send works only on older versions of windows:

net send localhost Some message to display

This also depends on the Messenger service to run, though.

For newer versions (XP and onward, apparently):

msg "%username%" Some message to display

It should be noted that a message box sent using msg.exe will only last for 60 seconds. This can however be overridden with the /time:xx switch.

Answer 3

echo X=MsgBox("Message Description",0+16,"Title") >msg.vbs

–you can write any numbers from 0,1,2,3,4 instead of 0 (before the ‘+’ symbol) & here is the meaning of each number:

0 = Ok Button  
1 = Ok/Cancel Button  
2 = Abort/Retry/Ignore button  
3 = Yes/No/Cancel  
4 = Yes/No  

–you can write any numbers from 16,32,48,64 instead of 16 (after the ‘+’ symbol) & here is the meaning of each number:

16 – Critical Icon  
32 – Warning Icon  
48 – Warning Message Icon   
64 – Information Icon  

Answer 4

Might display a little flash, but no temp files required. Should work all the way back to somewhere in the (IIRC) IE5 era.

mshta javascript:alert("Message\n\nMultiple\nLines\ntoo!");close();

Don't forget to escape your parentheses if you're using if:

if 1 == 1 (
   mshta javascript:alert^("1 is equal to 1, amazing."^);close^(^);
)

Answer 5

it needs ONLY to popup when inside a vm, so technically, there should be some code like:

if %machine_type% == virtual_machine then
   echo message box code
else
   continue normal installation code

Answer 6

This way your batch file will create a VBS script and show a popup. After it runs, the batch file will delete that intermediate file.

The advantage of using MSGBOX is that it is really customaziable (change the title, the icon etc) while MSG.exe isn't as much.

echo MSGBOX "YOUR MESSAGE" > %temp%\TEMPmessage.vbs
call %temp%\TEMPmessage.vbs
del %temp%\TEMPmessage.vbs /f /q