Hi,
Works fine for me here. Looking at your DIR results, it appears the wildcard
character, "a", wasn't carried on the first one. I just replicated your test
and here are the results:
Directory of C:\TestREN
05/17/2008 09:11 PM <DIR> .
05/17/2008 09:11 PM <DIR> ..
05/17/2008 09:11 PM 9,863 Test1.docx
05/17/2008 09:11 PM 9,887 Test2.docx
05/17/2008 09:11 PM 9,895 Test3.docx
3 File(s) 29,645 bytes
2 Dir(s) 77,118,971,904 bytes free
C:\TestREN>ren test*.docx work*.docx
C:\TestREN>dir
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 2176-638D
Directory of C:\TestREN
05/17/2008 09:12 PM <DIR> .
05/17/2008 09:12 PM <DIR> ..
05/17/2008 09:11 PM 9,863 work1.docx
05/17/2008 09:11 PM 9,887 work2.docx
05/17/2008 09:11 PM 9,895 work3.docx
3 File(s) 29,645 bytes
2 Dir(s) 77,118,185,472 bytes free
--
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -
www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts
http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
"SixSigmaGuy" <Rick@RYTEway.com> wrote in message
news:C1B5E01F-D343-4B9B-9032-11D174212563@microsoft.com...
I'm having trouble with the REN command with wild cards as used from the
command prompt.
For example, in the REN command help, it says:
"For example, if you had files that are named smitha.doc, smithb.doc, and
smithc.doc, you could use the ren smith*.doc smythe*.doc command. All file
names automatically show the new spelling, and are renamed smythea.doc,
smytheb.doc, and smythec.doc."
If I try the example, exactly as described, I don't end up with smythea.doc,
smytheb.doc, and smythec.doc.
Instead, when I create three files named smitha.doc, smithb.doc, and
smithc.doc and then execute the command:
ren smith*.doc smythe*.doc
I get:
C:\TestREN>ren smith*.doc smythe*.doc
A duplicate file name exists, or the file
cannot be found.
A duplicate file name exists, or the file
cannot be found.
C:\TestREN>dir
Volume in drive C is OS
Volume Serial Number is 0A07-21F5
Directory of C:\TestREN
05/17/2008 04:04 PM <DIR> .
05/17/2008 04:04 PM <DIR> ..
05/17/2008 04:03 PM 0 Smithb.doc
05/17/2008 04:03 PM 0 Smithc.doc
05/17/2008 04:03 PM 0 smythe.doc
0 File(s) 0 bytes
2 Dir(s) 48,010,428,416 bytes free
C:\TestREN>
This isn't how I recall REN working in previous versions of Windows. Anyone
know if the REN command has changed or been broken?