Quincy Center for Technical Education
Computer Technology Department

Start

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

start ["title"] [/dpath] [/i] [/min] [/max] [/separate| /shared] [/low|/normal|/high|/realtime] [/wait] [/b] [filename] [parameters]

Parameters

none

Used without parameters, start opens a second command prompt window.

"title"

Specifies the title to display in window title bar.

/d path

Specifies the startup directory.

/i

Passes the Cmd.exe startup environment to the new window.

/min

Starts a new minimized window.

/max

Starts a new maximized window.

/separate

Starts 16-bit Windows programs in separate memory space.

/shared

Starts 16-bit Windows programs in shared memory space.

/low

Starts an application in the idle priority class.

/normal

Starts an application in the normal priority class.

/high

Starts an application in the high priority class.

/realtime

Starts an application in the realtime priority class.

/wait

Starts an application and waits for it to end.

/b

Does not create a new window. CTRL+C handling is ignored unless the application enables CTRL+C processing. Use CTRL+BREAK to interrupt the application.

filename

Specifies the command or program to start.

parameters

Specifies parameters to pass to the command or program.

When command extensions are enabled (the default setting in Windows 2000), external command invocation through the command line or the start command changes as follows:

• Nonexecutable files may be invoked through their file association just by typing the name of the file as a command. For example, word.doc would open the application associated with the .doc file extension. Click assoc and ftype in the Related Topics list for information on creating these associations from within a command script.
• When executing an application that is a 32-bit GUI application, cmd 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 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

Note

• 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 opens Windows Explorer on that path. If done from the command line, it is the equivalent to using the cd /d command to that path.