ZT, thanks for taking the time to provide such a lengthy reply. Sorry about not providing all relevant details. My batch file runs on WinXP Pro. Unfortunately, yes, I am using long file names. My current batch file is working well, but I was hoping to extend the functionality to include deleting old files as well.

Currently, I have a Scheduled Task executing the batch file nightly. It does the following:
- starts ftp.exe and connects to an ftp server (UN/PW supplied in associated data file)
- downloads 2 files to current, local directory
- renames the two files by pre-pending current date to beginning of file names.
- moves both files to separate subfolders that are both in the current directory

This is working out well and I could just manually delete old files after a month or so if need be, but I was hoping to automate the cleanup through the batch file. I know batch scripting is wholly insufficient, but since I have absolutely zero programming experience/knowledge, I figured it was the lesser evil and the option with least complexity.

I think tackling learning Python for this one small task is a greater and longer investment that I can afford for this small need, but I’m going to give a shot at looking at it since the knowledge would certainly be valuable to have in general for me.

If you would like to suggest what the script might look like in Python in order to get me going down the right path, that would be greatly appreciated, but I understand if not, you already made a lengthy reply once, and I’m grateful. My current DOS batch script (which was created by soliciting help on forums such as this) looks like this (again, works great, just wondering how difficult it would be to add ability to delete files older than maybe 30 days from the two subfolders):

ftp -s:C:\NewsFTP\NewsDataFile.cmd
@echo off
for /f "tokens=1-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set weekday=%%a& set day=%%b& set month=%%c& set year=%%d)
ren newsfeed.dat %day%_%month%_%year%-newsfeed.dat
ren other_news.dat %day%_%month%_%year%-other_news.dat
move C:\NewsFTP\*-newsfeed.dat C:\NewsFTP\English
move C:\NewsFTP\*-other_news.dat C:\NewsFTP\Other


Thanks again, and sorry for the really long post.

Jim