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Is it possible to launch a Windows program from the Cygwin Shell? (similar to firing unix commands in PHP with "exec(…)")

My example: I'd like to launch a database backup in cygwin, however the mysqldump does not exist for cygwin. Therefore I need to fallback to the Windows version (c:\xampp\mysql\bin\mysqldump …). Is it possible to launch this from within Cygwin?

3 Answers 3

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Sure, just run it. The path is probably something like /cygdrive/c/xampp/mysql/bin/mysqldump. Just remember that any paths you pass TO mysqldump need to be in Windows (not cygwin) format. Or you can use the cygpath program to convert the paths for you.

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I do it this way:

In .bashrc, add alias start='cmd /c start'

Then use the start command as needed.

start .

Open the current directory in Explorer

start winword log.txt

Open log.txt in Word

There's also "cygstart" that may also work for you.

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    cygstart is the easiest, at least for launching windows explorer Nov 8, 2018 at 18:00
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    @SridharSarnobat In my current situation this comment of yours helped me more than any of the actual answers here.
    – mtraceur
    Jul 3, 2019 at 18:55
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I found an answer from SO site useful.

Find ".bash_profile" file in your Cygwin installation path ( cygwin\home\user-name )

Put following lines in a file.

export desktop="desktop path"

alias chrome="cygstart C:/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe"

alias dbDump="c:/xampp/mysql/bin/mysqldump"

save and close the file.

NOTE: It is important to escape characters in path and path should be in POSIX format, not in windows format. start bash prompt. Execute

$chrome

This will open chrome window.
or

$dbDump

This will execute mysqldump program.

If you want to change present working directory to desktop then

$>cd $desktop

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