Remove Quotes from a string

A routine that will reliably remove quotes from the contents of a variable .
This routine will only affects items that both begin AND end with a double quote.

e.g. will turn "C:\Program Files\somefile.txt" into C:\Program Files\somefile.txt
while still preserving cases such as Height=5'6" and Symbols="!@#

:DeQuote

SET _DeQuoteVar=%1
CALL SET _DeQuoteString=%%!_DeQuoteVar!%%
IF [!_DeQuoteString:~0^,1!]==[^"] (
IF [!_DeQuoteString:~-1!]==[^"] (
SET _DeQuoteString=!_DeQuoteString:~1,-1!
) ELSE (GOTO :EOF)
) ELSE (GOTO :EOF)
SET !_DeQuoteVar!=!_DeQuoteString!
SET _DeQuoteVar=
SET _DeQuoteString=
GOTO :EOF

Example

SetLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set _MyVariable = "C:\Program Files\ss64\"
CALL :dequote _MyVariable
echo %_MyVariable%

This script is tested on Windows XP and 2003, an earlier version of the script is suitable for NT4 /Win 2000.
See the discussion thread for more detail.

Related commands:

cmd Syntax
SetLocal - EnableDelayedExpansion
Long Filenames and NTFS - Valid characters in filenames