cmd.exe - start

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 applications that are not in PATH

Applications that are »registered« under the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths are found even though their executable is not found via the %PATH% environment variable.

It seems to me that this is possible because start uses the WinAPI/Shell function ShellExecuteEx() behind the scenes.

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"

Using PATHEXT

start uses the environment variable PATHEXT to determine the suffix of an executable of script if it was started without suffix.

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 .

Opening settings

The start command allows to open Windows settings from the command line like so:

C:\> start ms-settings:
C:\> start ms-settings:dateandtime
… etc. …

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}