The start command enables a user to open a separate window from the Windows command line.
Availability
Start is an internal command that is available in the following Microsoft operating systems.
For help with how to start using the command line, see: How to use the Windows command line (DOS).
Availability
Start syntax
Start examples
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 10
Start syntax
Windows Vista and later syntax
START [“title”] [/D path] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
[/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
[/NODE
Specifying /NODE allows processes to be created in a way that leverages memory locality on NUMA systems. For example, two processes that communicate with each other heavily through shared memory can be created to share the same preferred NUMA node to minimize memory latencies. They allocate memory from the same NUMA node when possible, and they are free to run on processors outside the specified node.
- Windows Vista and later syntax.
- Windows XP and earlier syntax.
The SEPARATE and SHARED options are not supported on 64-bit platforms.
start /NODE 1 /AFFINITY 0x3 application1.exe start /NODE 1 /AFFINITY 0xc application2.exe
If Command Extensions are enabled, external command invocation through the command line or the START command changes as follows:
non-executable files may be invoked through their file association by typing the name of the file as a command. (e.g., WORD.DOC would launch the application associated with the .DOC file extension). See the ASSOC and FTYPE commands for how to create these associations from within a command script.
When executing an application that is a 32-bit GUI application, CMD.EXE does not wait for the application to terminate before returning to the command prompt. This new behavior does NOT occur if executing in a command script.
When executing a command line whose first token is the string “CMD” without an extension or path qualifier, then “CMD” is replaced with the value of the COMSPEC variable. This change prevents picking up CMD.EXE from the current directory.
When executing a command line whose first token does NOT contain an extension, CMD.EXE uses the value of the PATHEXT environment variable to determine the extension. The default value for the PATHEXT variable is:
.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD
Notice the syntax is the same as the PATH variable, with semicolons separating the different elements.
When searching for an executable, if there is no match on any extension, then looks to see if the name matches a directory name. If it does, the START command launches the Explorer on that path. If done from the command line, it is the equivalent to doing a CD /D to that path.
Windows XP and earlier syntax
START [“title”] [/Dpath] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED] [/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL] [/WAIT] [/B] [command/program] [parameters]
When executing a command line whose first token is the string “CMD " without an extension or path qualifier, then “CMD” is replaced with the value of the COMSPEC variable. This change prevents picking up CMD.EXE from the current directory.
Start examples
start notepad myfile.txt
Start a new instance of Notepad with the file myfile.txt.
start /MAX notepad
Start the notepad window with the screen maximized.
start /MIN mybatch.bat
The above example would start the batch file mybatch.bat in a minimized window.
start c:\music"my song.mp3”
If the file or folder has a space in it, you must surround it with quotes. In the above example, we’re starting the MP3 song file “my song.mp3”. Without the quotes surrounding the file name with a space, you would get a Windows cannot find the file error.
start https://www.computerhope.com/
Open the Computer Hope web page in your default browser from the command line.
Related information
- See our start definition for further information and related links on this term.
