I’ve been working on a batch file script (yes I know I am meant to be using powershell) and kept getting a “The syntax of the command is incorrect”.

My code is as follows:-

reg query “hklm\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\windowsupdate\auto update\Rebootrequired”
if not errorlevel 1 (
::theKey exists therefore we need to do a reboot
echo reboot is required from previous windows updates.
)

The :: is a quick and tidy shortcut to rem out a statement in a batch file.

However – today I found out that you cannot use this trick within an if statement. Instead the :: needs to become rem

So the script becomes

if errorlevel 1 (
rem theKey exists therefore we need to do a reboot
echo reboot is required from previous windows updates.
)

For what it’s worth this is a snippet of code from a script that detects if windows updates are required, installs them, emails the log file and then reboots if required. The step above comes from a recent discovery that the patch detection returns no patches needed if the server is still in a pending reboot after patches were applied (typically because the shutdown failed to take place)