Why bother opening multiple programs in Windows at once? Recently in my office, someone asked how they can open multiple desktop applications at the same time without clicking on each application individually.
Normally, I would call this person lazy and ask him to stop bothering me, but since this person was doing a repetitive task and had to open the same apps every day, I thought I’d come up with a solution.
I also found that I usually open a couple of programs every morning, no matter what: Chrome for web browsing, Outlook for checking email, and Visual Foxpro for writing code (since I’m a programmer). So instead of clicking on three icons, I decided to create a so-called batch file to open all three applications at the same time!
You can create batch files on Windows very easily and all you need to create them is Notepad! Also, I’ll show you how you can use the Task Scheduler to run a batch file when your computer boots up so that programs start without even having to click!
How to create a batch file in Windows
Step 1. Open Notepad first
Step 2. Copy and paste the line below as the first line in the file:
@ echo off
Echo off basically tells Windows not to show any messages or pop-ups when executing commands in a batch file.
Step 3. Now we need to call the executable file for each of the three programs that we want to open. So in our example, I want to open Firefox, Outlook and Foxpro. The next three lines will look like this:
run “Chrome” “C: Program Files (x86) Google Chrome Application chrome.exe”
run “Outlook” “C: Program Files Microsoft Office Office12 Outlook.exe”
run “Foxpro” “C: Program Files Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9 vfp9.exe”
Each command above has three parts, which I will explain below:
start is the command used in batch files to open programs
Application Name – The second parameter is the name of the application that you are going to open. You can specify any name here as it only uses this parameter for header purposes.
Application Path – The last parameter is the actual path to the program’s executable file.
You can always find the path to the program by right-clicking the icon and choosing Properties. For example, if I wanted to know the path to the executable file for Firefox, I would right-click and select Properties.
Now all I have to do is look at the path in the Target field and just copy and paste it into my script batch file.
Please note that there are certain shortcuts where the Target field will be blank as shown below, mostly in Microsoft Office programs.
If so In this case, you will have to manually search for the EXE file in the system. For Office, everything is in C: Program Files Microsoft Office Officexx if you installed the 64-bit version, or C: Program Files (x86) Microsoft Office Officexx if you installed the 32-bit version. Application files are usually just the name of the program, such as EXCEL, WORD, or POWERPOINT.
After you have added all the entries to your file, the batch file should look something like this:
Now all you have to do is save it as a batch file, which is very easy. Go to File and click Save As. Give your file a name such as “Test.bat”. Please note that I have added .BAT to the filename manually. Finally, change the Save As type to All Files instead of Text Documents.
That’s all! Now you should test your batch file and see if all of your programs are loaded. I found that loading applications using a batch file is much faster for some reason. Not sure why, but Chrome, Outlook and Firefox load a few seconds faster than when I usually click on them.
Schedule batch file when PC starts
Now let’s schedule our batch file to run when we first log into Windows. To do this, click “Start”, enter “Task Scheduler” and click the first link.
Don’t be discouraged looking at the interface, because we only need to create a very simple task. On the right side, you should see a Create Baseline Task link. Go ahead and click on it.
Now give your main task a name, which can be anything. You can also give it a description if you like. When finished, click Next.
The next step is to select a trigger. In our case, we want the batch file to run on login, so select “When I login.” This is the only option that really makes sense.
The next step is to choose an action. In our case, the action will be to run our batch script, so select “Run Program”.
Finally, we need to select the batch file that we want to run on login. Go ahead, click the Browse button and navigate to the location of your batch file.
Click Next and then Finish. Now restart your computer and the programs should open when you log into Windows! Pretty pretty, huh? If you have any questions, please leave a comment. Enjoy!
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