Knowledge Base

Effects of Using the START Command at a Command Prompt

Article ID: 200469

Article Last Modified on 2/20/2007

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

This article was previously published under Q200469

SYMPTOMS

You can open a folder in a window by typing

start foldername

at a command prompt. However, if a folder named New Folder exists and you type

start "new folder"

at the command prompt, a new command window with the caption New Folder is opened instead of the New Folder folder.

CAUSE

The specification for the START command indicates that the first quoted string becomes the title for the new window.

RESOLUTION

To start a new window with a string that requires quotation marks, type:

start "" "New Folder"

This is also true for the following:

C:\>start "New Text Document.txt" to start "" "New Text Document.txt"

or

C:\>start "New Bitmap Image.bmp" to start "" "New Bitmap Image.bmp"

Keywords: kbprb kbui KB200469