You can compress your .BTM files with BATCOMP. That command reduces the size of large batch files by at least a half and makes them unreadable with the LIST command and similar utilities. Compressed batch files run at approximately the same speed as uncompressed .BTM files.

 

You may want to consider compressing batch files if you need to distribute them to others and keep your original code secret or prevent your users from altering them. You may also want to consider compressing batch files to save some disk space on the systems where compressed files are used.

 

The full syntax for the batch compression command is

 

BATCOMP [/Q][/O] InputFile OutputFile

 

You must specify the full name of the input file and output files, including their extensions, on the BATCOMP command line. For example, to compress MYBATCH.CMD and save the result as MYBATCH.BTM, you use this command:

 

batcomp mybatch.cmd mybatch.btm

 

If the output file (MYBATCH.BTM in the examples above) already exists, BATCOMP will prompt you before overwriting the file. You can disable the prompt by including /O on the BATCOMP command line immediately before the input file name. Even if you use the /O option, BATCOMP will not compress a file into itself.

 

The /Q ("quiet") option suppresses informational messages from BATCOMP.

 

JP Software does not provide a utility to decompress batch files. If you use BATCOMP, make sure that you also keep a copy of the original batch file for future inspection or modification.