Hello everyone, long time no see...again. I come bearing not a sacred ocarina, but the fruits of my labor, that being my discovery of the joys of the command prompt! I've just made something rather cool. I programed a little batch file (like a command shortcut if you didn't know) that will store the contents of a folder into a Winrar archive, then hide that archive inside a viewable, editable picture! This way if you've got some kind of files you want to hide from prying eyes, this is a way to make it hidden without being verry noticeable (it'll have a higher than normal file size though).
First things first, you're going to need the program Winrar. Winrar, as most of you should know, is a compression tool much like Winzip or 7Zip. Find it on Google and install it if you don't have it. REMEMBER THE INSTALL PATH! If you installed it into
C:\program files\Winrar\than that's easy. just make sure you write it down. Alright, next we need to create a few folders. I'm going to put it into the Z:\ drive. My new folder will be called "Copier." Inside this folder, we need to create two more folders. I'm going to call them "Files" and "Image." So now we have these three folders:
Z:\Copier
Z:\Copier\Files
Z:\Copier\ImageAnyway
In the "Copier" folder, right-click somewhere and create a new text document called "Copier.bat" Congratulations! You just created your first batch file! If you like, you can make a "Hello World test by copying and pasteing the following code into the text editor (right-click and click edit)
@echo off
Echo Hello World!
Pause
So, once you've done the "My first bit of code dance" (or if you've used the command prompt before and don't want to act like a newb), delete the code from the text editor, and put in what I have. I'm going to explain it line by line by using comments (don't put the comments into the batch file!):
@echo off //makes the screen legible, but not needed
set path="C:\Program Files\winrar\";%path% //Imports commands from Winrar
rar a Z:\Copier\Backup.rar Z:\Copier\Files\ //creates a new Rar archive with the "Files" folder
echo Mergeing files... //Prints text to the screen. Not needed
copy /b Z:\Copier\Image\ + Backup.rar Hidden_Backup.png //The magic code, copies two files (the picture in the image folder and backup.rar) into one new one (Hidden_backup.png)
echo Done //Prints text to the screen. Not needed
echo Deleteing file Backup.rar //Prints text to the screen. Not needed
del Z:\Copier\Backup.rar //delete the old rar archive
echo Done //Prints text to the screen. Not needed
pause //wait for user input to close window
Now, place the files you like to hide into the "Files" folder, an inconspicuous image in the "Image" folder, and run the batch file! If everything worked properly, you'll see a new file entitled "Hidden_Backup.png". Double click the new image, and it'll open in an image editing program, but if you right-click it and select open With and choose Winrar, you gain access to the hidden files! You can use any picture file type, but just be sure to change the new file's type in the batch file.
There ya go! But remember, as with anything regarding the command prompt, use it responsibly, it's a great and powerful tool
BTW: I wasn't sure how to put something like this in the new gallery format, so that's why I put it here...
