How do I run a .exe but stay in the same command window (not open a new one)?

Question

I have searched for many weeks to solve my problem and can't find a good way of doing it that works on every machine I may need to use.

I know START command opens a new window to do the .exe, but I want to stay in the same window and run the .exe

(because I want my batch file to continue ONLY WHEN THE .EXE has finished running)

I have found that on some computers when I .exe it opens a new window and other computers is stays in the same window which makes me think my code is fine but there is a setting somewhere on the computers that is different.

Can you help? What are my options? The .exe I am running is NASTRAN which is an engineering solver that runs in command window.

Answer 1

To wait for the command to terminate you should use the WAIT flag:

start /WAIT c:/windows/system32/notepad.exe 

You could start an application without creating a new window using the B flag:

start /WAIT /B "c:/windows/system32/cmd.exe" 

You should also try reading the help text for the start command:

start /? 

Answer 2

You can use cmd /k example.exe

Answer 3

You probably have a different variant of the .exe on some machines which is called only there, and spawns a separate window, for reasons I cannot know. Search for the .exe file on all machines and compare.

Also, post your batch file code so we can exactly see how you start the .exe.

Answer 4

You could consider not using start at all. Simply start the executable directly.