.bat files, nonblocking run/launch

Question

How do i launch 2 apps at once in a .bat file? my current text is

cd mydir
my.exe
my.exe difParams
//bat is finished. i dont want my.exe to close


        

Answer 1

start "MY EXE" my.exe 

That kicks the exe off in the background (and avoids title issues, see below).

The start command offers some options too, use start /? to list them:

C:>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.
    I           The new environment will be the original environment passed
                to the cmd.exe and not the current environment.
    MIN         Start window minimized.
    MAX         Start window maximized.
    SEPARATE    Start 16-bit Windows program in separate memory space.
    SHARED      Start 16-bit Windows program in shared memory space.
    LOW         Start application in the IDLE priority class.
    NORMAL      Start application in the NORMAL priority class.
    HIGH        Start application in the HIGH priority class.
    REALTIME    Start application in the REALTIME priority class.
    ABOVENORMAL Start application in the ABOVENORMAL priority class.
    BELOWNORMAL Start application in the BELOWNORMAL priority class.
    NODE        Specifies the preferred Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA)
                node as a decimal integer.
    AFFINITY    Specifies the processor affinity mask as a hexadecimal number.
                The process is restricted to running on these processors.

                The affinity mask is interpreted differently when /AFFINITY and
                /NODE are combined.  Specify the affinity mask as if the NUMA
                node's processor mask is right shifted to begin at bit zero.
                The process is restricted to running on those processors in
                common between the specified affinity mask and the NUMA node.
                If no processors are in common, the process is restricted to
                running on the specified NUMA node.
    WAIT        Start application and wait for it to terminate.
    command/program
                If it is an internal cmd command or a batch file then
                the command processor is run with the /K switch to cmd.exe.
                This means that the window will remain after the command
                has been run.

                If it is not an internal cmd command or batch file then
                it is a program and will run as either a windowed application
                or a console application.

    parameters  These are the parameters passed to the command/program.

A tricky bit can be that the "title" comes before the executable and it's parameters, so sometimes you need to give the app a title just to get start to parse the arguments correctly. :-|