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MS DOS Command: START

Reference from Microsoft WinXP cmd help

Description

Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.

Syntax

Parameters

"title"	Specifies the title to be displayed in the window title bar.
/Dpath	Specifies the starting directory.
/I	Specifies to pass the original CMD.exe startup environment to the new Command Prompt window.
/MIN	Specifies to start the window minimized
/MAX	Specifies to start the window maximized
/SEPARATE	Specifies to start the 16-bit windows program in separate memory space.
/SHARED	Specifies to start the 16-bit windows program in shared memory space.
/LOW	Specifies to start the application in the IDLE priority class.
/NORMAL	Specifies to start the application in the NORMAL priority class.
/HIGH	Specifies to start the application in the HIGH priority class.
/REALTIME	Specifies to start the application in the REALTIME priority class.
/ABOVENORMAL	Specifies to start the application in the ABOVENORMAL priority class.
/BELOWNORMAL	Specifies to start the application in the BELOWNORMAL priority class.
/WAIT	Specifies to start the application and wait for it to terminate.
/B	Specifies to start the application without creating a new window. The application has ^C handling ignored. Unless the application enable ^C processing, ^Break is the only way to interrupt the application.
command/program	Specifies to start as command or program If it is an internal cmd command or a batch file then the command processor is run with the /K switch to cmd.exe. This means that the window will remain after the command has been run. If it is not an internal cmd command or batch file then it is a program and will run as either a windowed application or a console application.
parameters	Specifies the parameters passed to the command/program

Remarks

If Command Extensions are enabled, external command invocation through the command line or the START command changes as follows:

non-executable files may be invoked through their file association just by typing the name of the file as a command. (e.g. WORD.DOC would launch the application associated with the .DOC file extension). See the ASSOC and FTYPE commands for how to create these associations from within a command script.

When executing an application that is a 32-bit GUI application, CMD.EXE does not wait for the application to terminate before returning to the command prompt. This new behavior does NOT occur if executing within a command script.

When executing a command line whose first token is the string "CMD " without an extension or path qualifier, then "CMD" is replaced with the value of the COMSPEC variable. This prevents picking up CMD.EXE from the current directory.

When executing a command line whose first token does NOT contain an extension, then CMD.EXE uses the value of the PATHEXT environment variable to determine which extensions to look for and in what order. The default value for the PATHEXT variable is:

.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD

Notice the syntax is the same as the PATH variable, with semicolons separating the different elements.

When searching for an executable, if there is no match on any extension, then looks to see if the name matches a directory name. If it does, the START command launches the Explorer on that path. If done from the command line, it is the equivalent to doing a CD /D to that path.

Content

MS DOS Command: START

Description

Syntax

Parameters

Remarks