Interesting find with run commands

phoeneous

I accidentally typed "..." in the run window and it opened the My Computer Window. I tried a single period "." and it opens %userprofile%. I tried two periods ".." and it opens the Documents and Settings folder. Same for you guys?

I typed these without the quotes.

dynamik

. is your current directory, which is your profile directory by default, and .. is the directory a step up in the hierarchy. It looks like Windows, at least 7, treats anything more than two the same as it treats one (current directory).

earweed

dynamik wrote: »

. is your current directory, which is your profile directory by default, and .. is the directory a step up in the hierarchy. It looks like Windows, at least 7, treats anything more than two the same as it treats one (current directory).

Same with Vista

Lamini

didnt know that you could do that from run command as I always ran those in command prompt, but now that I think about it, makes sense, other than the not having to type "cd"

mikedisd2

Hmm, . and .. took me to my shared network drive ( H: ) on XP. I'll try this one at home as well.

Devilsbane

mikedisd2 wrote: »

Hmm, . and .. took me to my shared network drive ( H: ) on XP. I'll try this one at home as well.

That is because your H drive is where your company is saving the profile.


I thought . was current, .. was up 1. Don't think ... does anything special. Maybe it goes up 2?

RobertKaucher

Devilsbane wrote: »

That is because your H drive is where your company is saving the profile.


I thought . was current, .. was up 1. Don't think ... does anything special. Maybe it goes up 2?

At least on my PC these do not function the same in CMD as they do in Run.

wastedtime

RobertKaucher wrote: »

At least on my PC these do not function the same in CMD as they do in Run.

Try adding start in front of it, that is if you haven't already.

Devilsbane

. or .. in cmd gives errors.
. or .. in run opens stuff.
start . in run oddly enough produces an error "windows cannot find 'start'."

seuss_ssues

Devilsbane wrote: »

. or .. in cmd gives errors.
. or .. in run opens stuff.
start . in run oddly enough produces an error "windows cannot find 'start'."

start is not a windows command.

You can move up as many folders as you want "..\.." takes me all the way to the root of my c:\.

wastedtime

seuss_ssues wrote: »

start is not a windows command.

You can move up as many folders as you want "..\.." takes me all the way to the root of my c:\.

Start is a windows command. It was first added in Windows 95a and somewhere along the way became an internal command. It is included at least all the way to Vista (not sure about 7 as I haven't used it, but I heard it does). I know in XP you can see it listed in the Help command and "cmd /?".

phoeneous

seuss_ssues wrote: »

start is not a windows command.

Yes it is.

C:\Users\root>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]
      [/AFFINITY <hex affinity>] [/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.
    AFFINITY    The new application will have the specified processor
                affinity mask, expressed as a hexadecimal number.
    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.

NOTE: The SEPARATE and SHARED options are not supported on 64-bit platforms.

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 just
    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
    within 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 prevents picking up CMD.EXE
    from the current directory.

When executing a command line whose first token does NOT contain an
    extension, then CMD.EXE uses the value of the PATHEXT
    environment variable to determine which extensions to look for
    and in what order.  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.