CMD.EXE should accept ECHO. and return a blank line. I use this often in batch programs (.BAT, .CMD) for formatting. It has been working well for as long as I can remember, then something happened (and I don't know what) that causes this to be considered invalid and displays msg. "'echo.' is not recognized as an internal or external command" Any ideas will be appreciated. This is Windows Server 2003 (standard) with SP1. Other computers don't have this problem, so is specific to the box. It has been rebooted, still no joy. Thanks for any tips!

I verified the Echo cmand running win2003 with sp2 but I get the oppsoite of what you get. At the command prompt typing echo gives the following C:\>echo /?Displays messages, or turns command-echoing on or off. ECHO [ON | OFF] ECHO [message] Type ECHO without parameters to display the current echo setting. C:\>echoECHO is on. C:\>echo off Echo off does not turn off Echo. it sits there not doing anything. had to close the command window to bail out ! ctrl+C did not work. Paul.

this forum is for Windows Server 2008.If you post specifically in a Windows Server 2003 group you might get faster a response. Try the search function first e.g. here

You might want to verify whether C:\Windows\System 32 is in environmental path of this server.

If you enter ECHO by itself, it will do what you noticed. I'm using ECHO. - with a period. It should display a blank line, so you can format output.echo This is line 1echo this is line 2echo.echo this is line 4, line 3 is blankIt appears to be folder-dependent, it works fine for other folders from the command prompt. The problem only happens with the "." version to get a blank line.