Hidden Start nixes console/batch windows (updated)

Among other things C7 RC2 now has two Run buttons. The prevous Run functionality (which calls MSBuild first to verify all the pieces are there) is now assigned to a "play" button which has a little lightning bolt added. The plain "play" button is now a Run the Startup Project button which calls the solution's EXE without doing any checks first. I'm delighted to report that this means my previous blog post about a simple Clarion app to RUN whatever program was passed to it, along with a Tools menu option to call the app, is now irrelevant.

What I neglected to mention in that blog post is that I also considered creating a batch file to run the solution's EXE directly, but batch files pop up console windows. My Clarion solution using RUN executed the EXE transparently.

But RUN isn't the solution to every problem. For instance, Brahn Patridge discovered some problems with the maximum length of parameters accepted by the template #RUN statement which he circumvented by writing out and executing a batch file. And that resulted in the annoying console window popup. Brahn eventually found a nifty tool called Hidden Start that executes batch files and console apps without displaying a window. Hidden Start is free, although a license is required for commercial distribution. Thanks for the tip, Brahn.

UPDATE: Mark Riffey tells me that AVG flags Hidden Start as a virus. As far as I can tell this is because Hidden Start can be used to run programs without the user receiving any indication that the program is running, not because there's an actual virus. But use appropriate caution.

Posted: April 13 2009