batch files and custom headers and progress bars

Question

i have written a pretty big batch file which does a heap of different things and opens and runs scripts on cad files etc.

what i want to know is if i make a custom header using ascii art and find the code for some form of progress bar, is there a way to keep it displaying whilst the remaining code runs in the background?

@echo off
echo  "blah blah" 
echo  "blah blah"
echo  "blah blah"
echo  "blah blah"
@echo on

which my understanding is upon running it it will just cycle off the terminal window with the 50 other commands which run after it. i was going to try and create the company logo based on some vector image we have for cad.

I would really like to run everything in the background anyway so unsuspecting little hackers in my workplace don't go looking for the cad files to edit them.

i will be looking into some form of batch compiler as well.

One last thing, how are those 80's looking keygens that float around the internet created? are they just batch files compiled into a executable file?

Any useful guides on creating custom looking batch files out there?

Answer 1

Your .bat script could START the CAD file program, then use ANSI codes to make text graphics on the display to distract inquisitive twits. Of course, the CAD file program needs to send all of its output to files and not write on the display. Use 1> to redirect stdout and 2> to redirect stderr.

http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ansi.php

Ok, so ANSI codes might not work out well in recent versions of Windows running cmd.exe as the shell.