command in Command Prompt window, and press Enter to open the target application in CMD. Replace the “program name” with the exact file’s system name of the program but not its shortcut name. For instance: start explorer.

The file’s system name of some common programs in Windows are as follows:

• Command Prompt: cmd
• File Explorer: explorer
• Task Manager: taskmgr
• Calculator: calc
• Notepad: notepad
• Paint: mspaint
• Windows Media Player: wmplayer

How to Run EXE in CMD on Windows 10

You can follow the instructions below to run an exe file in Command Prompt.

Step 1. Access Command Prompt window

You can follow the same operation above to open Command Prompt in Windows 10.

Step 2. Navigate to the folder of the target program

Next you can type cd command in Command Prompt window, and press Enter to navigate to the folder that contains the target exe application. Replace “file path” with the exact file path of the exe file.

You can find the target program folder and click the address bar at the top of File Explorer window to copy the path of the program folder and paste it after cd command. For example, cd C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player.

Step 3. Run exe from CMD

After you are in the target program folder path, then you can type start after the selected file path in CMD, and press Enter to run the exe file in Command Prompt. Replace “filename.exe” with the target program name, e.g. start wmplayer.exe.

Bottom Line

This post introduces how to run a program or exe file from CMD on Windows 10. Hope it helps.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Alisa is a professional English editor with 4-year experience. She loves writing and focuses on sharing detailed solutions and thoughts for computer problems, data recovery & backup, digital gadgets, tech news, etc. Through her articles, users can always easily get related problems solved and find what they want. In spare time, she likes basketball, badminton, tennis, cycling, running, and singing. She is very funny and energetic in life, and always brings friends lots of laughs.

How do I launch a program from command line without opening a new cmd window?

I’m trying to programmatically execute an external file from cmd using this command:

Where «filepath» is the path of my file. It opens fine but it also open a new command prompt window.

So, which is the right command for opening an external program without opening a new window?

9 Answers 9

In Windows 7+ the first quotations will be the title to the cmd window to open the program:

Formatting your command like the above will temporarily open a cmd window that goes away as fast as it comes up so you really never see it. It also allows you to open more than one program without waiting for the first one to close first.

Add /B, as documented in the command-line help for start:

Just remove the double quote, this works in Windows 7:

If you want to maximize the window, try this:

Your command START «filepath» will start a command prompt and change the command prompt title to filepath .

Try to run start /? in windows command prompt and you will get more info.

I think if you closed a program

end, so if you want to start a program that you can use

(/norma,/max/min are that process value cpu)

start «filepath»

if you want command line without openning an new window you write that

start /b «filepath»

/B is 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.

If you’re doing it via CMD as you say, then you can just enter the command like so:

which will open it within the same window. For example in C++:

will open your.exe in the current CMD window. Likewise to start with a new window, just go for:

If you go for the first option, you would have to clear your screen unless you wanted to have the command to open your.exe on the screen still.

You can use the call command.

Usage: call [drive:][path]filename [batch-parameters]

For example call «Example File/Input File/My Program.bat» [This is also capable with calling files that have a .exe, .cmd, .txt, etc.

NOTE: THIS COMMAND DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK.

Not all computers are capable to run this command, but if it does work than it is very useful, and you won’t have to open a brand new window.

“Register” an .exe so you can run it from any command line in Windows

How can you make a .exe file accessible from any location in the Windows command window? Is there some registry entry that has to be entered?

20 Answers 20

You need to make sure that the exe is in a folder that’s on the PATH environment variable.

You can do this by either installing it into a folder that’s already on the PATH or by adding your folder to the PATH .

You can have your installer do this — but you may need to restart the machine to make sure it gets picked up.

Windows 10, 8.1, 8

Open start menu,

1. Type Edit environment variables
2. Open the option Edit the system environment variables
3. Click Environment variables. button
4. There you see two boxes, in System Variables box find path variable
5. Click Edit
6. a window pops up, click New
7. Type the Directory path of your .exe or batch file ( Directory means exclude the file name from path)
8. Click Ok on all open windows and restart your systemrestart the command prompt.

You can add the following registry key:

In this key, add the default string value containing the path to the exe file.

You have to put your .exe file’s path into enviroment variable path. Go to «My computer -> properties -> advanced -> environment variables -> Path» and edit path by adding .exe ‘s directory into path.

Another solution I personally prefer is using RapidEE for a smoother variable editing.

Rather than putting the executable into a directory on the path, you should create a batch file in a directory on the path that launches the program. This way you don’t separate the executable from its supporting files, and you don’t add other stuff in the same directory to the path unintentionally.

Such batch file can look like this:

Let’s say my exe is C:\Program Files\AzCopy\azcopy.exe

I can now simply type and use azcopy from any location from any shell inc command prompt, powershell, git bash etc

it’s amazing there’s no simple solution for such a simple task on windows, I created this little cmd script that you can use to define aliases on windows (instructions are at the file header itself):

this is pretty much the same approach used by tools like NPM or ruby gems to register global commands.

It is very simple and it won’t take more than 30 seconds.

For example the software called abc located in D:/Softwares/vlc/abc.exe Add the folder path of abc.exe to system environment variables.

My Computer -> Click Properties -> Click Advanced system settings -> Click Environment Variables

now you can just open cmd prompt and you can launch the software from anywhere. to use abc.exe just type abc in the command line.

• If you want to be able to run it inside cmd.exe or batch files you need to add the directory the .exe is in to the %path% variable (System or User)
• If you want to be able to run it in the Run dialog (Win+R) or any application that calls ShellExecute, adding your exe to the app paths key is enough (This is less error prone during install/uninstall and also does not clutter up the path variable)

You may also permanently (after reboots) add to the Path variable this way:

Right click My Computer -> Click Properties -> Click Advanced system settings -> Click Environment Variables

Simple Bash-like aliases in Windows

To get global bash-like aliases in Windows for applications not added to the path automatically without manually adding each one to the path, here’s the cleanest solution I’ve come up with that does the least amount of changes to the system and has the most flexibility for later customization:

«Install» Your Aliases Path

Add Your Alias

Open in New Shell Window

To start C:\path to\my program.exe , passing in all arguments, opening it in a new window, create c:\aliases\my program.bat file with the following contents(see NT Start Command for details on the start commmand):

Execute in Current Shell Window

To start C:\path to\my program.exe , passing in all arguments, but running it in the same window (more like how bash operates) create c:\aliases\my program.bat file with the following contents:

Execute in Current Shell Window 2

If you don’t need the application to change the current working directory at all in order to operate, you can just add a symlink to the executable inside your aliases folder:

Put it in the c:\windows directory or add your directory to the «path» in the environment-settings (windows-break — tab advanced)

Add to the PATH, steps below (Windows 10):

1. Type in search bar «environment. » and choose Edit the system environment variables which opens up the System Properties window
2. Click the Environment Variables. button
3. In the Environment Variables tab, double click the Path variable in the System variables section
4. Add the path to the folder containing the .exe to the Path by double clicking on the empty line and paste the path.
5. Click ok and exit. Open a new cmd prompt and hit the command from any folder and it should work.

Use a 1 line batch file in your install:

run the bat file

Now place your .exe in c:\windows, and you’re done.

you may type the ‘exename’ in command-line and it’ll run it.

Another way could be through adding .LNK to your $PATHEX. Then just create a shortcut to your executable (ie: yourshortcut.lnk) and put it into any of the directories listed within $PATH.

WARNING NOTE: Know that any .lnk files located in any directories listed in your $PATH are now «PATH’ed» as well. For this reason, I would favor the batch file method mentionned earlier to this method.

In order to make it work

You need to modify the value of the environment variable with the name key Path , you can add as many paths as you want separating them with ; . The paths you give to it can’t include the name of the executable file.

If you add a path to the variable Path all the excecutable files inside it can be called from cmd or porweshell by writing their name without .exe and these names are not case sensitive.

Here is how to create a system environment variable from a python script:

It is important to run it with administrator privileges in order to make it work. To better understand the code, just read the comments on it.

Tested on Windows 10

You can find more information in the winreg documentation