CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsbatch-file
Mark Attwood
Mark Attwood

Reputation: 4412

How to start an application without waiting in a batch file?

Is there any way to execute an application without waiting in batch file? I have tried the start command but it just creates a new command window.

Upvotes: 200

Views: 249626

Answers (6)

TechSpud
TechSpud

Reputation: 3518

EDIT moved /B parameter/switch to before the command path, as per Nime Cloud's recommendation

I successfully used a combo of @joey's post, with added /B flag, as follows

START "" /B "Path\To\Application.exe"

Partial output from help command: HELP START...

  B  Start application without creating a new window. The
     application has ^C handling ignored. Unless the application
     enables ^C processing, ^Break is the only way to interrupt
     the application.

Upvotes: 6

Nime Cloud
Nime Cloud

Reputation: 6397

This command starts ClamAV in a seperate console window with custom icon of clamd.exe

start "c:\clamav\clamd.exe" "c:\clamav\clamd.exe"

So the generic format would be like:

start "Your new title" "c:\path\your.exe"

Upvotes: 2

Ed Bayiates
Ed Bayiates

Reputation: 11210

I used start /b for this instead of just start and it ran without a window for each command, so there was no waiting.

Upvotes: 19

Shital Shah
Shital Shah

Reputation: 68728

If your exe takes arguments,

start MyApp.exe -arg1 -arg2

Upvotes: 10

Joey
Joey

Reputation: 354506

I'm making a guess here, but your start invocation probably looks like this:

start "\Foo\Bar\Path with spaces in it\program.exe"

This will open a new console window, using “\Foo\Bar\Path with spaces in it\program.exe” as its title.

If you use start with something that is (or needs to be) surrounded by quotes, you need to put empty quotes as the first argument:

start "" "\Foo\Bar\Path with spaces in it\program.exe"

This is because start interprets the first quoted argument it finds as the window title for a new console window.

Upvotes: 371

egrunin
egrunin

Reputation: 25053

If start can't find what it's looking for, it does what you describe.

Since what you're doing should work, it's very likely you're leaving out some quotes (or putting extras in).

Upvotes: 4

Related Questions