Command line arguments (other BurnInTest options) |

Command line arguments can be used to specify certain BurnInTest options and can be particularly useful when automating BurnInTest. Available command line arguments The following are the BurnInTest command line parameters: -A BurnInTest will not collect System Information that requires elevated administrator privileges. This is useful for test automation under Windows Vista (and later) as Windows Vista would normally prompt with a security message before allowing the collection of the System information.

-B
BurnInTest will generate additional Serial port test information when activity trace level 2 logging is set. This can be useful to help debug specific serial port errors.

-C [configfilename]
Loads the configuration file specified by [configfilename]

-D [minutes]
Sets the test duration to the value specified by minutes. Decimal values can be used.

-E [data]
Specifies the test data to use in the serial port test. [data] is a single byte in the range, 0..255. If this is not specified, the serial port test will use the default setting of random data. This can be useful to help debug specific serial port errors.

-J

Cycle Disk test patterns between test files (when cyclic set). Note: Random seeking will be skipped in this case. This option has been added to allow multiple test patterns to be used across very large disks, without waiting for the disk to be completely tested with one pattern before moving on to the next disk test pattern.

-K

Keep disk test files. Specifies not to delete the disk drive test files when an error (e.g. Verification error) occurs. This is intended to assist investigating disk errors. It is recommended that this option is used in conjunction with the Auto Stop Tests on Error feature within Preferences. Once the test files have been investigated, they should be deleted manually.

-KA

Keep disk test files. Specifies not to delete the disk drive test files, in all cases. Once the test files have been investigated, they should be deleted manually.

-L [x,y,wt,ht]
Starts BurnInTest with the main window located at top-left co-ordinates x, y and with width wt and height ht. It is important that there are no white space characters in [x,y,wt,ht] specifications.

-M
Automatically display the Machine ID Window when BurnInTest is started. This can be useful in a production line scenario to allow the tester to enter test specific information in a more automated fashion.

-P
Force all files (e.g. configuration and log files) that would normally be saved or loaded from the User's Personal folder (ie. where the directory path has not been specified) to be saved or loaded from the BurnInTest directory. This can be useful when running BurnInTest from removable media, such as a USB drive, CD, DVD, Firewire drive etc.

-R
Executes the tests immediately without needing to press the go button. It also skips the pre-test warning message.

-S [scriptfilename]
On startup, BurnInTest will automatically run the script file specified by [scriptfilename]. [scriptfilename] can be an absolute or relative path to the script file, but if the path and/or filename contain any space characters, you should enclose the entire string in double quotes (“”). Learn more about Scripting here.

Often, -c <config file> is used with the -s command line parameter. This starts the script with a specific configuration, rather than the current configuration on the PC (in the LastUsed.bitcfg file). If the script contains REBOOT/REBOOTEND commands, the startup shortcut specifying BurnInTest (to start BurnInTest after reboot) should not include the -c <config file>, as in this case, the current configuration on the PC should be used for the continuation of a script after reboot.

-U
Force BurnInTest to set logging on at startup. Logging will be started with Activity trace 2 logging and a file name of Debug<_date/time>.trace.

-V
Increase the error reporting detail for the standard RAM test.

-W
Minimize the amount of System Information collected and displayed by BurnInTest. This can be useful for test automation as is can take some time to collect this information and slow test startup. It could also be used to simply reduce the amount of system information in reports. Note: That setting "-W" also sets "-A", i.e. you don't need to specify "-W -A", just "-W".

-X
Skip the DirectX version checks at startup time. This can be useful for users that do not want to install the latest version of DirectX and do not want to use the DirectX tests (eg. 3D tests).

Using command line arguments

There are a number of different way to specify command line arguments and this can depend on what you are trying to achieve. The most common options for specifying a command line argument are:

1) You can create a shortcut to bit.exe and then specify the command line in the shortcut target.

Example 1: Start BurnInTest from a shortcut and run tests automatically.

Right click on the bit.exe file and select Create Shortcut.

Right click on the new shortcut file and select Properties and specify a Target with the command line argument.

"C:\BurnInTest\bit.exe" -r

Now to run BurnInTest with these command line parameters, just double click the BurnInTest shortcut. You could also copy the shortcut to the Windows Startup folder to run BurnInTest automatically with the current default settings after Windows has booted.

2) You can open a command window, Start-R, "Cmd". This will open a command window where you can type commands directly, such as shown below.

Example 2: Start BurnInTest from a command window and run a pre-defined script of tests

Select Windows Start-R, "Cmd"

Once the Windows command window is open, type in the commands:

cd C:\Program Files\BurnInTest

bit.exe -s MyScript.bits

3) You can write a batch file to execute BurnInTest with Command line arguments.

Example 3: Start BurnInTest from a batch file with a pre-defined configuration file

Create a file with an text editor (like Notepad) called Test.bat and include the lines in the file

c:

cd "\program files\BurnInTest"

bit.exe –c “heavyload.bitcfg”

Example 4: Start BurnInTest on a USB thumb drive from a batch file, run the tests automatically and use the bit.exe directory as the default directory (i.e. save log files to the USB thumb drive).

In the BurnInTest directory on the thumbdrive, you create a file, bit_p.bat, then edit this file and add the line:

bit.exe -r -p

See also

Calling external programs via Auto stop actions

Reboot cycling