Launch CMD line apps from windows shortcuts that stay open after execution

Sometimes you just feel lazy. Admit it. You'd like to be able to just double-click a shortcut and launch your favorite command line applications in one shot ... oh and not have them disappear once they complete their run before you can absorb the output. :)

Here's a quick little trick that some may or may not know.

CMD.EXE has some switches of it's own that don't get used too often unless you spend a lot of time scripting batch files etc.

The one we care about for this blog post is the"/K" switch

Definition -/k : Carries out the command specified by string and continues.

So let's say you have Ncat installed and you want to have a quick desktop shortcut to launch it, you would set it up as follows:

1. Right-click the desktop and choose NEW > Shortcut and the following window will appear

2. Enter "cmd.exe" into the location and click NEXT
3. Type in the desired shortcut name, in this case: Ncat 5.21
4. Once you have clicked Finish, you should see something like the following on the desktop. Right-click the icon and choose Properties
5. In the Properties pop-up window, you should see the following
6. In the "Target:" field append " /k ncat -h" with out the quotes as shown below**NOTE: I like to add the "-h, -?, or /?" switch to print help at the end of the command as some command line tools if launched without a help switch will enter interactive mode immediately and I always like a quick reminder of the switches I can use with the command before using it.

7. Also you'll want to usually run built-in command line tools from the systems directory, in this case: SYSTEM32 So append it to the path "Start in:" like shown below.8. I like to modify the Options for the command prompt window to allow QuickEdit. Just check the box for it on the Options Tab as shown below.9. I usually increase the size of the command prompt window as well. From the Layout Tab I change the windows size height to 50 as shown below, so I can see all the help that the "-h" printed.10. After clicking OK, I double-click the shortcut icon and viola:
This can be used for any command line application. You can get more creative to include more complex switch and command arguments to the shortcut if there is a particular process you want to launch easily. If you go too far with it, you might as well start batch scripting though. ;)

Go Team CMD-LINE!