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AutoRun for the Command Prompt

When I was looking at the documentation for the registry and keys associated with the command processor I came across this:

Hmm. For the fun of it I opened up the key and put ‘notepad.exe’ in the AutoRun value.(To see how this actually worked)

Any time I opened a console application, or a command prompt window notepad would launch - and the command processor would not start until it was closed. This includes the users login script.

So. This means whatever program I put in this key will execute, and the command processor will wait for it to finish before continuing.

This is perfect for something I was trying to do a few months back. I wanted to dynamically set a few environment variables - and have them available to any console based application. I tried putting it in the logon script, but that didn’t work since the environment variables only lasted for that session.

I ended up using the CALL command within each batch file I had. This was difficult because the batch files were part of an aging third party application - There were hundreds of them. Also some of them were automatically generated from time to time by the application, so the solution was not perfect.

I went back and setup my “set environment variables” batch file in the AutoRun key of the registry (Side note - make sure you put quotes around the full path of the filename in this key…or it will get lost on the first space it sees).

Then I removed my added call commands. Now when I ran any command prompt my custom environment variable script executed dutifully.

Better yet, since it is a registry key I was able to write a quick login script that updated all the clients on the network with the new setting.

I am not sure how often most administrators will need to use this registry key, since usually a login script will work for what you need. Still - the AutoRun key for the command prompt has its purpose. Now that you know it is there you have the option to use it when needed.

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Written by Steve Wiseman. Read more great feeds at is source WEBSITE
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