186

How can I execute a windows command line in the background, without it interacting with the active user?

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  • 1
    Can you specify what you want to do? Do you want to perform a command on the command line in background or do you want to perform the whole command line in background, so it is unvisible from the desktop? – omnibrain Oct 12 '10 at 6:20
  • i need two cane perform a command on the command line in background or do you want to perform the whole command line in background – Mohammad AL-Rawabdeh Oct 12 '10 at 6:41
  • Duplicates this question on ServerFault. – Dan Dascalescu Aug 16 '15 at 20:11

10 Answers 10

Active Oldest Votes
42

Your question is pretty vague, but there is a post on ServerFault which may contain the information you need. The answer there describes how to run a batch file window hidden:

You could run it silently using a Windows Script file instead. The Run Method allows you running a script in invisible mode. Create a .vbs file like this one

Dim WinScriptHost
Set WinScriptHost = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WinScriptHost.Run Chr(34) & "C:\Scheduled Jobs\mybat.bat" & Chr(34), 0
Set WinScriptHost = Nothing

and schedule it. The second argument in this example sets the window style. 0 means "hide the window."

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  • This is perfect. SetPoint for Logitech never, NEVER, starts with windows. I've been starting it manually for about 3 years now. Does it matter where the batch is? I've seen some people put this type of batch file in C, or the root. – ejbytes Jan 31 '16 at 0:00
280

This is a little late but I just ran across this question while searching for the answer myself and I found this:

START /B program

which, on Windows, is the closest to the Linux command:

program &

From the console HELP system:

C:\>HELP START

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

START ["title"] [/D path] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
      [/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
      [/NODE <NUMA node>] [/AFFINITY <hex affinity mask>] [/WAIT] [/B]
      [command/program] [parameters]

    "title"     Title to display in window title bar.
    path        Starting directory.
    B           Start application without creating a new window. The
                application has ^C handling ignored. Unless the application
                enables ^C processing, ^Break is the only way to interrupt
                the application.

One problem I saw with it is that you have more than one program writing to the console window, it gets a little confusing and jumbled.

To make it not interact with the user, you can redirect the output to a file:

START /B program > somefile.txt
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  • 4
    I like this answer best because it doesn't open another command window – wisbucky Jan 3 '14 at 16:17
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    This doesn't seem to work for me, it seems to only create a new cmd instance [?] however if I run it like start /B "" program then it worked... – rogerdpack Jun 24 '15 at 4:56
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    @rogerdpack That's right. For some reason with Windows 7, this is the command format. The "" is the mandatory title parameter. – ejbytes Jan 30 '16 at 23:58
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    Unfortunately, if I exit the shell window in which I spawned the process, it looks like the process also terminates. – palswim Jul 21 '16 at 22:36
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    @Qwerty: Look at the MSDN for SetConsoleCtrlHandler – Zan Lynx Sep 12 '16 at 19:29
77

I suspect you mean: Run something in the background and get the command line back immediately with the launched program continuing.

START "" program

Which is the Unix equivalent of

program &
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  • 7
    what is the fg equivalent? Can we close the command prompt and the porgram will still run? – Joel Peltonen Oct 15 '14 at 11:34
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    Also, I want to run a program in command prompt and return to it from time to time, like in screen - is that doable with this? I need to be able to close the command prompt but keep the running program usable. – Joel Peltonen Oct 15 '14 at 11:36
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    What's that empty parameter of start? It doesn't work without it (executes just a new command instance), but start's help doesn't say anything about it, it states all parameters are optinional (or I don't understand it). – David Ferenczy Rogožan Oct 14 '15 at 17:41
  • @DawidFerenczy start works without the empty parameter for me, but I seem to get a shells with a separate configuration when I use the empty parameter, as a setting I did when I didn't have the empty parameter isn't used when I do use the empty parameter. I wonder why they use separate configurations? – HelloGoodbye Apr 13 '16 at 15:23
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    @Paul START "" program starts a command in a new terminal for me, while program & in Unix runs the command in and prints the output to the same terminal. – HelloGoodbye Apr 13 '16 at 15:25
15
START /MIN program

the above one is pretty closer with its Unix counterpart program &

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8

You can use this (commented!) PowerShell script:

# Create the .NET objects
$psi = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
$newproc = New-Object System.Diagnostics.Process
# Basic stuff, process name and arguments
$psi.FileName = $args[0]
$psi.Arguments = $args[1]
# Hide any window it might try to create
$psi.CreateNoWindow = $true
$psi.WindowStyle = 'Hidden'
# Set up and start the process
$newproc.StartInfo = $psi
$newproc.Start()
# Return the process object to the caller
$newproc

Save it as a .ps1 file. After enabling script execution (see Enabling Scripts in the PowerShell tag wiki), you can pass it one or two strings: the name of the executable and optionally the arguments line. For example:

.\hideproc.ps1 'sc' 'stop SomeService'

I confirm that this works on Windows 10.

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  • 4
    yep start /b no longer works. – Sajuuk May 6 '18 at 5:32
3

This is how my PHP internal server goes into background. So technically it should work for all.

start /B "" php -S 0.0.0.0:8000 &

Thanks

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2

A related answer, with 2 examples:

  1. Below opens calc.exe:

call START /B "my calc" "calc.exe"

  1. Sometimes foreground is not desireable, then you run minimized as below:

call start /min "n" "notepad.exe"

call START /MIN "my mongod" "%ProgramFiles%\MongoDB\Server\3.4\bin\mongod.exe"

Hope that helps.

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  • This doesn't seem to run it minimized: call Start /MIN "c" "calc.exe" – moondra Mar 12 '18 at 4:19
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    correct, it works for notepad: call start /min "n" "notepad.exe" – Manohar Reddy Poreddy Mar 12 '18 at 6:44
  • So it works for windowed applications but not for console applications. Figures, as one can pass the SW_* to CreateProcessW via STARTUPINFO::wShowWindow (including SW_HIDE). – 0xC0000022L Aug 14 '18 at 18:57
  • What is a full command, with above like "start" or other tool? do we need to write another program? – Manohar Reddy Poreddy Aug 15 '18 at 1:50
1

If you want the command-line program to run without the user even knowing about it, define it as a Windows Service and it will run on a schedule.

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  • 4
    how do you do that? – barlop Sep 30 '11 at 19:26
  • Alternatively you can make it a scheduled task - Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Scheduled Tasks or use the schtasks command in Windows XP and above (warning: schtasks is complicated). – LawrenceC Apr 6 '12 at 19:02
-1

You can see the correct way to do this in this link:

How to Run a Scheduled Task Without a Command Window Appearing

Summarizing, you have to checkbox for 'Run whether user is logged on or not'. Task user credentials should be enter after pressing 'Ok'.

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-2

just came across this thread windows 7 , using power shell, runs executable's in the background , exact same as unix filename &

example: start -NoNewWindow filename

help start

NAME Start-Process

SYNTAX Start-Process [-FilePath] [[-ArgumentList] ] [-Credential ] [-WorkingDirectory ] [-LoadUserProfile] [-NoNewWindow] [-PassThru] [-RedirectStandardError ] [-RedirectStandardInput ] [-RedirectStandardOutput ] [-Wait] [-WindowStyle {Normal | Hidden | Minimized | Maximized}] [-UseNewEnvironment] []

Start-Process [-FilePath] <string> [[-ArgumentList] <string[]>] [-WorkingDirectory <string>] [-PassThru] [-Verb
<string>] [-Wait] [-WindowStyle <ProcessWindowStyle> {Normal | Hidden | Minimized | Maximized}]
[<CommonParameters>]

ALIASES saps start

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