Batch file for opening most recent Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Log

Question

In Vista, I want to run a batch script to open the most recent file, based either on last modified date, or the date in the filename. It's for Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware logs in the %username&/appdata/roaming/Malwarebytes/Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware/Logs folder.

Log files are in this format here

mbam-log-2009-03-21 (00-20-21).txt

mbam-log-2009-03-21 (09-42-40).txt

mbam-log-2009-03-21 (11-02-43).txt

mbam-log-2009-03-21 (11-12-01).txt

mbam-log-2009-03-21 (12-01-42).txt

mbam-log-2009-03-21 (12-04-49).txt

mbam-log-2009-03-21 (14-01-41).txt

So its 24-hr format. I read on another page on here, and got this script here..

@echo off
dir *.txt /b /on > systext.bak 
FOR /F %%i in (systext.bak) do set sysRunCommand=%%i 
call %sysRunCommand%
del systext.bak /y

but it doesn't like the space in the filename.. always get an error. Anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

The following one-line batch file will open the most recently modified file:

for /f "usebackq delims=" %%i in (`dir /b /o-d`) do @start "%%i"&goto :eof

Using dir strikes me as much simpler than trying to dissect the date in the filename. You can also order by filename (as the date format is somewhat ISO-8601-ish is sorts well).

The goto :eof is just there to make sure only the most recent file will be opened and not all in order of date/time.

As for your space problem, surrounding the file name with quotes usually should fix that, but sometimes it's a little difficult to know where they have to be. Also, for by default tokenizes its input at spaces, that's why I included delims= in there which essentially says »Put everything into the variable and don't do any tokenizing«.

Answer 2

You actually have three problems in the script. The first is that %%i is likely to be set to the words with a filename- this can be fixed by using "delims=" in the for statement.

The second is that you need to quote spacey filenames in you call statement.

The third is that I'm not aware of a /y option for del, perhaps you mean del /f.

Amyway, give this one a shot:

@echo off
dir *.txt /b /on > systext.bak 
FOR /F "delims=" %%i in (systext.bak) do set sysRunCommand=%%i 
call "%sysRunCommand%"
del /f systext.bak

Answer 3

I get this here to put the most recent mbam log file into a variable in Vista; but it doesn't work in XP. How can I get it to work in XP? I get the error '%%i was unexpected @ this time'

@echo off

dir "%userprofile%\Appdata\Roaming\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs" /b /on > systext.bak 
FOR /F "delims=" %%i in (systext.bak) do set mbamlog=%%i

Answer 4

I know this is an old post, and I don't mean to revive it - I have an alternative approach to the question.

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware includes the ability to reroute the log file to an alternate location (folder or specified file).

You can run "%programfiles%\malwarebytes' anti-malware\mbam.exe" /logtofile c:\logs\bob-mbam-log.txt. /logtofolder also works. (the above command assumes you're using a 32 bit system.)

When specifying a file, mbam appends instead of overwriting. So, that may make the log a little more difficult to parse.