Running Multiple programs at once from Windows Run Dialog Box

Question

I like to open many programs from the Run dialog box. I need a way to be able to start multiple programs from one single use of the Run box.

Though the question is straightforward, yet for any confusion clarification whatsoever - I open Google Chrome, Outlook and Visual Studio from the Run dialog box by typing chrome, outlook and devenv one at a time. So i need a way to be able to run all three of them in one go.

I tried giving the input as chrome; outlook; devenv and it failed. I tried chrome, devenv, outlook and it failed too.

Update: Problem with the first and obvious solution of Writing a batch file is that it is hard coded. So I can't start a new combination of programs now. I created a batch file dgc for opening devenv, chrome and outlook at the same time. But this time i wanted to open vlc media player too along with the previous three programs. This makes the batch file idea not so useful.

Further, if it was possible to run that batch file along with vlc by doing something along the lines of dgc; vlc;, then i could start the previous three programs AND vlc media player all at the same time.

Anyone knows the right way?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, this is not possible.

You have a couple of options though. If you are always going to want to open the same group of programs, you could wrie a simple batch file which you can call from run (which will in turn spawn all programs).

If you have a changing or dynamic list - you could write a piece of vbscript which takes all arguments passed to the script and opens them as arguments - like so:

Set objArgs = Wscript.Arguments
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
For Each strArg in objArgs
  WshShell.Run(strArg)
Next

Usage: myscript.vbs calc cmd mspaint explorer

if this errors you can always add on error resume next to the top of the script to only run valid commands. If you have any spaces in program names or paths, these would need to be wrapped in "quotes"

EDIT: If you create a registry key at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\run.exe and give it a default reg_sz value of C:\windows\system32\runapps.vbs and then place your file in theat location - you can launch a run prompt and use run mspaint calc winword.. which will save you a few characters: (in this case a.vbs is the script i wrote for you earlier)