Help with DOS batch file please

[Joe Horn]

Sorry for this TOTALLY non-HP calculator request, but I'm at wit's end here and this is a geeky enough group that I'll bet somebody here will know the answer.

I have a bunch of files on my PC with names like this:

foo.FRED.txt
bar.FRED.txt
fumtu.FRED.txt
snafu.FRED.txt
and so on. A zillion of 'em.

I want to remove the redundant ".FRED" from all the names, preserving the rest of the name. There MUST be a way of writing a simple .BAT file that does this.... but every attempt I've made so far has been disastrous and I'm going nuts.

FWIW, all I have is the CMD window of Windows 7, not anything nice like 4DOS.

Several hours of searching the web has proved fruitless. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!