CHOICE.EXE

The choice.exe program was part of the core set of utilities from MS-DOS 6.0 (and therefore was also a part of Windows 3.1 which ran on top of DOS), beginning with Windows 98, it was removed from the Command Line (or DOS) utilities the shipped with the operating system and moved to the resource kit. (The program was actually changed for Windows NT to fix performance problems and that utility is slightly different from the original DOS version.) The choice.exe utility was restored to the core set of utilities in Windows Server 2003.

So on most modern versions of Windows (excluding Windows Server 2003), the choice.exe utility will not be present unless the user has installed the resource kit. If you are distributing a Command Line script that requires choice.exe, you either need to include the resource kit utility with your script (something the End User Licensing Agreement will usually not permit) or require that the user purchase and install the resource kit.

The choice.exe utility is not part of the Windows 2000 Resource Kit utilities that you can download and install for free, nor is it a part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit as choice.exe was moved back into the core set of Command Line utilities that ships with Windows Server 2003.

Fortunately there is an Open Source alternative from the FreeDOS project that you can include with your scripts. (This is what I did when I wanted to include choice.exe with my Instant Windows Rsync Server package.) The program works similarly to the version from MS-DOS and works on all current versions of Windows (I haven't tested it under Vista yet). The program is licensed under the GNU General Public License and can be freely redistributed with your script.

Note that the GNU General Public License (GPL) requires that you either include the source code or provide a way for users to obtain the source code for any GPL program included in your package. The LSM (a description of the package and where the source code is maintained) can be found here. Or you send them here for the source code, as I have included the source package on this site as well.

Download the Utility Program (6KB)

Download the Source Code (40KB)