How to keep the VBScript command window open during execution

Question

When I execute a VBScript, the command window that it creates closes quickly before the user gets a chance to read the output. How can I get the window to stay open without modifying windows registry?

This is the code:

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.shell") 
objShell.Run "SyncToyCmd.exe -R", 1, True

Answer 1

You can send your execution command through the cmd.exe command interpreter, along with a pause command which will give the user a Press any key to continue . . . prompt to close the window.

objShell.run "%comspec% /c ""SyncToyCmd.exe -R & pause""", 1, True

Or to keep the window alive, use the /k flag instead of /c:

objShell.run "%comspec% /k SyncToyCmd.exe -R", 1, True

But beware, your VBScript will not continue (or terminate) until this cmd window is manually closed.

The %comspec% environment variable refers to the correct command to open the command interpreter as per your operating system. On my XP machine, for instance, %comspec% is equal to C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe.

See cmd.exe documentation here: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/cmd.mspx?mfr=true

More info on the use of the & versus the && command separators here.

Answer 2

Assuming that it's the popped-up command window that you want to keep open (rather than the one running your VBScript), you can use CMD.exe's Pause command to achieve this:

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.shell") 
objShell.Run "cmd.exe /C ""SyncToyCmd.exe -R & Pause"" ", 1, True