This batch file is an example of Questions 17 20 pose questions from the following Windows batch file. set dbUser=root set dbPassword=password set backupDir="C:\Documents and Settings\user\Desktop\backup\mysql" set mysqldump="C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Workbench 5.2 CE\mysqldump.exe" set mysqlDataDir="C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\data" set zip="C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" : get date for /F "tokens=1-3 delims=- " %%i in ('date /t') do ( set yy=%%i set mon=%%j set dd=%%k ) :: get time for /F "tokens=5-8 delims=:. " %%i in ('echo.^| time ^| find "current" ') do ( set hh=%%i set min=%%j ) echo dirName=%yy%%mon%%dd%_%hh%%min% :: switch to the "data" folder pushd %mysqlDataDir% :: iterate over the folder structure in the "data" folder to get the databases for /d %%f in (*) do ( if not exist %backupDir%\%dirName%\ ( mkdir %backupDir%\%dirName% ) %mysqldump% --host="localhost" --user=%dbUser% --single-transaction --add-drop-table --databases %%f > %backupDir%\%dirName%\%%f.sql %zip% a -tzip %backupDir%\%dirName%\%%f.sql.gz %backupDir%\%dirName%\%%f.sql del %backupDir%\%dirName%\%%f.sql ) popd

a a physical backup only

b a physical backup and a restore

c a scheduled backup

d a general backup script that can run on any operating system