Parenthesis in variables inside IF blocks

Question

In one of my scripts, I need to use variables that contain parenthesis inside IF statements, but either the string is missing a closing parenthesis or the script ex

Answer 1

Forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but isn't the "NOT" causing control to enter the bracketed if and run the broken output?

what about:

@echo off

echo Perfect output: %programFiles(x86)%
IF NOT "%programFiles(x86^)%" ==  "" (
    REM Variable is defined
    echo Broken output:  %programFiles(x86)%
) 

pause >nul

?