As part of my regular backup routine, I zip up the contents of various
directories into files called backup.zip, eudora.zip and
attachments.zip. What I want to do is have a batch file that will
rename those files automatically by appending the date at the front of
each file name in the format of yymmdd. For example:
030928 backup.zip
030928 eudora.zip
030928 attachments.zip

This is important because I want to store different backups of
different dates on the same backup web site and the same backup CD.

I have seen programs on the web like ND, wmd2fn and fdate. But all of
them seem to replace the filename with the date instead of appending
the date in the format I want to the front of the filename.

I have also looked at the help in a dos window and I can see that
%date% is a variable which I might be able to use. But I can't work
out either how to write it into a dos REN command, or how to have the
date temporarily formatted in the six-digit format I want without
permanently changing the way dates appear in windows.

What I'd like is a dos batch file where I can run program
\directory\*.* and it will rename all files in the directory in the
way I want.

How are you currently doing the zip operation?
I created a script to zipping`

I apologize for partial comment ...

I was telling about a script that I created to zip various folders on
my drives. What to archive .. is managed in an MS Access database
where one can specify ANY number of source folders and the target
location for their archive.

I used winzip for compressing - but can change it to anything you feel
comfortable. The archived/zip files are stored as dated files (as you
mentioned).

I am using this script to do scheduled backup of my work folders.

Let me know if you are interested.

Thanks, but it sounds a bit too complicated to use an access db. I'd
rather have a simple batch file where I can see what it's doing.

What if I give you a simple batch file that takes in same input as you
mentioned in your original question (e.g. C:\archive\*.*) and rename
all files in there to something like this:

backup20030928.zip
eudora20030928.zip

Is this acceptable?

Yup, I'd be happy with batch file whose outcome renamed files I
specify including wildcards with oldname.20030929.oldextension.

That would be good.

Use a utility called ANT from ant.apache.org

Ant is really designed to build and compile programs written in Java.
However it has many features for filesystem manipulation. I bet you
can write an ant build script to do what you want.

Well, thank you all for your suggestions. In the meantime I've also
done some searching of my own and I've found the program that does
exactly the right thing: it creates a simple date parameter called
%dosdate% which is the date in the format YYMMDD.

The program is called dosdate.exe
and it's to be found at 
http://64.85.16.166/adb/adbins.htm

I don't know whether I should pay the $10 to 1salz-ga. I'd be happy to
but he or she didn't get back to me with the file he offered, and in
the meantime kdrguy came back with a different file but in the form of
a comment rather than an answer. I'd like to do the right thing here
-- I'm going to close the question to further answerers now and then
see what options Google offers me.