How-to Run Shell Program in Background

Is there a capability in the Windows-XP shell (command line interface) equivalent to the Linux (UNIX) shell capability of the "&" key? That is, which lets you start a command as a separate process to run in background while you go on with other commands?

I want to invoke a command line program automatically at startup that can keep running in background long after Windows finishes booting. It will assign itself a socket and behave as a Linux daemon. Putting its shortcut in the startup folder results in it starting -- I see the Cmd window flash on the screen -- and immediately terminating

Thanks for your attention.

--rlsj.

 

http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/winxptip.htm#StartupOrder

not sure what you want to do, but you can have any program you want to run at startup, read the article above and also the links within the article and see if this is what you want.

 

Elizabeth23: Thanks for your response.

I don't think the referenced article covers my problem, which has nothing to do with order of startup, as far as I can tell.

I have a program that is normally run in a command-line window. I want it to be automatically invoked at system boot. It opens a socket and waits for a TCP connection, which means its process must continue to exist in the background. If I put its shortcut in the Windows startup folder, a command window flashes on the screen at reboot -- meaning the program has started but immediately terminates. How can I keep it running in the background so that its process name will appear in the Task Manager display?

The referenced article seems to involve setting Registry keys. Where can I find information about their format, in particular how do I associate my program with any such key? And will a key that invokes the program at reboot keep it alive after it has proceeded to wait for a connection?

--rlsj

 

Can you tell me the name of your program?

 

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20558361-XP-Pro-Run-a-program-in-background

this was one way, I have not used the start command but you may know how it works.

http://trayit.en.softonic.com/

above will create a system tray icon to keep it in the background, I have not used this program, but you can check it out, and read any reviews on it.

http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=409996

this may help also.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ntcmds.mspx?mfr=true

command line help

 

Elizabeth23: Thanks for the pointer.

Putting this bat file into the Windows startup folder works:

d:
cd \
start /b c:\util\unison -socket 6996

But it's messy. It leaves a command window open on the screen. Anything done to close that window terminates the background unison process. I can minimize it, but that still takes up a slot on the Start Bar, as well as requiring a redundant action at boot.

I guess the short answer is that Windows-XP has nothing that quite matches the siimple Linux "&" command suffix. And yet many other programs seem able to run invisible processes in background after boot -- apparently just not those that must be started from the command-line.

Will anyone dispute that?

--rlsj

 

http://superuser.com/questions/198525/how-can-i-execute-a-windows-command-line-in-background

the second answer in this thread gives a link on how to run a batch program hidden.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/34598-45-windows-command-background-unix

also helpful.