Is it possible to create a shortcut to a Window console app that starts hidden?

Question

I'd like to start a console app upon startup, but I'd like it not to clutter the taskbar with a cmd.exe item. The options I have when editing a shortcut are only "Normal window", "Minimized", and "Maximized". I faintly remember some WIndows version having "Hidden" as an option. I'm using Windows 2008.

Answer 1

I've had this problem too, I wrote a small app that does this: http://miffthefox.googlepages.com/silentcmd.

Answer 2

You can create a .vbs file with the following

Const HIDDEN_WINDOW = 12

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set objStartup = objWMIService.Get("Win32_ProcessStartup")

Set objConfig = objStartup.SpawnInstance_
objConfig.ShowWindow = HIDDEN_WINDOW
Set objProcess = GetObject("winmgmts:root\cimv2:Win32_Process")
errReturn = objProcess.Create("Cmd.exe /c C:\run.bat", null, objConfig, intProcessID)

And replace

"Cmd.exe /c C:\run.bat"

with your silent command

Answer 3

According to this page from the MSDN setting intWindowStyle (one of the arguments to WScript.Shell.Run) to 0

Hides the window and activates another window.

Though it also states:

intWindowStyle
Optional. Integer value indicating the appearance of the program's window. Note that not all programs make use of this information.