How can I make my batch script on context menu work on UNC paths?

Question

I added a "Create Date Folder" option to my context menu which calls a batch script. Basically, I right click on any background and then click on the "Create Date Folder" option and it creates a folder with the name in this format YYYYMMDD-XXX, where XXX are initials of the person creating the folder. In my case it will be LS. Everything was working fine until someone tried it on a UNC path (No letter network path) and it didn't work. I am just wondering if I can do something to my code to make it work with UNC paths.

I read about deactivating a safety register or something like that but I would like to enter code heretake a safe approach. Also, I have tried the pushd and popd commands but it creates the folder where that batch file is and I want it to create it where I do the right click.

Here is my register:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Date Folder]
@="Create Date Folder"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Date Folder\command]
@="D:\\Scripts\\getdate.bat"

Here my batch script:

@echo off
setlocal
rem get the date
rem use findstr to strip blank lines from wmic output
for /f "usebackq skip=1 tokens=1-3" %%g in (`wmic Path Win32_LocalTime Get Day^,Month^,Year ^| findstr /r /v "^$"`) do (
  set _day=00%%g
  set _month=00%%h
  set _year=%%i
  )
rem pad day and month with leading zeros
set _month=%_month:~-2%
set _day=%_day:~-2%
rem output format required is YYYYMMDD-XXX
md %_year%%_month%%_day%-LS
endlocal

I would like the date folder to be created on any UNC path where I do right click. I put a pause on my batch script and I could see the UNC path not supported message.

Answer 1

I would suggest you forget about calling a batch-file at right-click time, using a command instead; in this case a powershell one.

Here's a one line example batch-file, to set it up:

@"%__AppDir__%WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Powershell.exe" -NoP "NI 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Directory\Background\shell\MkStampedDir' -Va 'NOW Folder Here' -F";"NI 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Directory\Background\shell\MkStampedDir\command' -Va '\"%__AppDir__%WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Powershell.exe\" -NoP \"$dt=Get-Date -F {yyyyMMdd-XXX};MD \"%%V\$dt\"\"' -F"

In this case I've used the current user registry instead of the machine registry. As you did not provide any information as to how you determine the initials to use in the string I have appended XXX to represent them at this time.

After running the above batch-file, simply right-click in a directory background inside a new Explorer window and choose NOW Folder Here to create the new directory.