Starting another cmd.exe
start
can be used to start another instance of cmd.exe
:
start cmd
When another
cmd.exe
is started it can be passed a command to be executed with the
/c
or /k
option.
Usually, the
/k
is preferrable because the result of the command will be still visible after the command is run. (
/c
terminates the newly started cmd.exe
process.
start cmd.exe date /t
Starting executables whose path contains spaces
Using start
to run an executable whose path contains spaces, the path needs to be enclosed in quotes.
However, if the start command encounters quotes, it interprets them as a title. Thus, a (possibly) empty title needs to be given in order to start the following executable:
start "" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\OUTLOOK.EXE"
Quickly opening folders below a directory in %PATH%
Directories immediately below a directory in
%PATH%
can be opened in explorer by typing
start
plus the name of the directory. For example, to open the
Fonts
folder (which is usually below
C:\Windows
, the following command might do:
C:\> start fonts
In order to open the explorer and display the current directory, the dot can be used:
C:\users\rene> start .
For completness' sake, in
PowerShell, a directory (such as
.
) can be opened in the explorer with the
invoke-item
(for which
ii
is an
alias:
PS C:\users\rene> ii .
shell:::{GUID}
A special syntax allows to open(?) a
GUID. For example, the following opens something that is related to printers:
start shell:::{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
Apparently, using
start shell:::{GUID}
is a shorthand for starting the
executable of explorer with that argument:
explorer.exe shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6}