What's New in Hstart
Below is the list of the latest news and blog posts on Hidden Start. You can subscribe to the NTWind News by email or RSS to stay up-to-date with our products and services.
Hidden Start v4.1 - Support For Long Commands
New version of Hidden Start was released today. Now Hstart can process long command lines with more that 2,048 characters - there is no limit.
Changelog for Hidden Start v4.1:
- Added support for long commands with more than 2k characters
- Hstart now ignores empty command arguments like "" or " "
Download Hidden Start (32-bit and 64-bit)
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 30-Nov-11 15:03
Hidden Start v4.0 – Run Apps without UAC Prompt
The new major version of Hidden Start was released this week. The most noticeable update is Hstart GUI Tool – HstartUI.exe which is a part of the distribution package now.
Hstart GUI Tool would help you to build complex command lines and test them immediately. It can quickly create a shortcut on the desktop or an autostart entry in the Windows registry.
Run Applications without UAC Prompt
The second big improvement is /NOUAC switch that allows you to run applications or batch files with administrative privileges without any UAC prompts. Here is a simple example:
Of course, it can be used with other options:
The following command opens Local Group Policy Editor:
And here is how to open Windows Hosts file for editing:
Environment Variables
As you can see from the previous example, Hstart now expands environment variables in the executed command lines. This may help you to make more system independent commands:
"cmd.exe /c "D:\test.bat > test-output.txt""
""%ProgramFiles%\EmEditor\emeditor.exe" test-output.txt"
Other Improvements
The new Hstart uses a more efficient parsing algorithm to process complex command lines. The entire program code has been rewritten to make Hstart faster and bug free.
Download Hidden Start (32-bit and 64-bit)
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 25-Aug-11 06:21
Hidden Start v3.2 - Delay Before Executing Command
The new version of Hidden Start allows you to set the startup delay (in seconds) before executing a batch file, command or sequence of commands.
You could use it as follows:
Download Hidden Start (32-bit and 64-bit)
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 07-Jul-10 10:01
Hidden Start 3.1 - Windows 7 Compatibility
This minor update to Hstart adds support of the upcoming Windows 7 operating system:
Hstart can start non-elevated applications from elevated and handle UAC prompts on Windows 7 as well as on Windows Vista.
Download Hstart 3.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 06-Oct-09 09:20
Hidden Start 3.0 - Start Non-Elevated Apps From Elevated
On Windows Vista, programs started from an elevated application or script would also run in elevated mode with full administrative rights. Hstart 3.0 gives an easy and native way to start a non-elevated program from the command line or a batch file, even if the command line proces is elevated. (see examples and learn more)
Installers that always run with full administrative rights on Vista computers can benefit from using Hstart with the /NONELEVATED switch and run other programs or scripts with the rights of the currently logged on user.
Hstart is very small (~40 Kb), but it allows you to:
- start multiple applications in the specified order synchronously;
- start console applications without any windows in the background;
- start non-elevated applications from elevated scripts and batch files (new in v3.0);
- handle UAC privilege elevation under Windows Vista and above;
- set the working directory and priority class of the created processes;
- show success and error messages after command execution.
Download Hstart 3.0 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 24-Jul-09 23:46
Hstart 64-Bit Edition (AMD64/EM64T)
Hstart 64-Bit Edition has been released yesterday. You may want to use native x64 executables because they work a bit faster on x64 platform and use x64 environment variables by default. See x64\ReadMe.txt for more information:
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 06-May-08 11:49
Hidden Start v2.1 released
Hstart displays now a simple error message if the parameter is unknown or mistyped. Also I have added the /SILENT command line switch (silent mode: no error messages will be displayed).
Here are a few real-world examples of using Hstart:
- Example 1: Automate your daily backups
- Example 2: Optimize images with PNGOUT
- Example 3: Code Signing with one click
Hstart executable, readme and examples:
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 17-Apr-08 17:53
Hidden Start v2.0 released
Hstart v2.0 has been released today. The new major version contains a number of innovative features that enable even easier working methods.
- User-friendly quote processing
Hstart v2.0 uses its own algorithm to parse complex command line arguments. It enumerates all the opening/closing quotation marks and handles embedded quotes in a more user-friendly manner. (Learn more)
- Test mode
The /TEST command line switch allows you to see what parameters are passed to Hstart and how they are processed:
- Message after command execution
Hstart allows you to run console applications completely hidden, and now there is a simple way to tell the user whether the command is executed correctly or not:
- Run applications from the Windows Shell
Essentially, the new /SHELL command line switch works in the same way as the Windows Run dialog: the given parameters are passed to the Windows Shell to be handled rather than by calling the application directly. This makes it possible for the Shell to select an appropriate program to run for a given filename.
- UAC privilege elevation under Windows Vista
Especially for Windows Vista users, Hstart v2.0 provides two new command line switches: /RUNAS and /UAC.
For more information, please read:
Here are a few real-world examples of using Hstart:
- Example 1: Automate your daily backups
- Example 2: Optimize images with PNGOUT
- Example 3: Code Signing with one click
More examples coming soon... Please visit our support forums to report any bugs and suggest new features.
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 14-Mar-08 06:55
Hstart v1.1 released
Hstart is a little utility which allows you to run console applications and batch files without any windows. There is an updated version of Hstart with new /WAIT and /HELP flags.
When using this /WAIT flag with multiple command lines (e.g. hstart /WAIT "command1" "command2"), Hstart starts command1 and command2 continuously and returns an unsuccessful code (non-NULL) if one of these processes return it.
Discussion at: http://www.ntwind.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=129
Posted by Alexander Avdonin on 01-Feb-07 16:25