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StartX v1.15 An application + source code to call the CreateProcess API

Welcome to StartX, A very simple utility to allow you to call the CreateProcess API from the command line.

Places where you might find StartX useful are in adding an Autorun.inf file to your CD-R / DVR-R Discs. For example suppose you have a text file called readme.txt on the root of your CD which you would like to run it automatically by displaying it in Wordpad maximized whenever the user inserts the CD. All you need to do is put StartX.exe, some ico file and the readme.txt files into the root directory and create a autorun.inf file with the following contents:

[autorun]
open=StartX.exe /MAX "wordpad.exe readme.txt"
icon=youricon.ico

The more technically minded of you may say why is there a need to have this program since you can use "start filename" on autorun CD's without any apparent problems. The problem with this approach is that it does not work on versions of Windows based on the NT kernel as "start" is implemented as an "Internal" command in cmd.exe with the upshot that your CD's will not autorun on versions of Windows based on the NT kernel. Using StartX will mean that your CD's will autorun on all OS's which support it.

StartX includes a nearly full superset of the commands which the internal Windows XP and later Start command provides. The full list is:

StartX ["title"] [/Dpath] [/MIN | /MAX | /HIDE] [/NOUI] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED] [/PP] [/Uuser] [/Wpassword] [/Odomain] [/K[desktop]] [/Px,y] [/Scx1,cy1] [/CScx2,cy2] [/FR] [/FG] [/FB] [/BR] [/BG] [/BB] [/FS] [/LP | /LNCO] [/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL] [/WAIT] [/B] [/RETURNERROR] [/AFFINITYx] [/NODEx] [/PREVENTPINNING] [/TITLEISAPPID] [/TITLEISLINKNAME] [/UNTRUSTEDSOURCE] ["command/program parameters"]

The enclosed zip file contains the StartX source code and a prebuilt version of StartX.

 

Copyright

 

Updates

v1.15 (27 May 2022)

v1.14 (5 April 2020)

v1.13 (29 December 2019)

v1.12 (16 November 2019)

v1.11 (1 June 2019)

v1.10 (17 October 2018)

v1.09 (5 December 2017)

v1.08 (5 June 2016)

v1.07 (22 May 2016)

v1.06 (11 November 2008)

v1.05 (8 February 2008)

v1.04 (17 July 2006)

v1.03 (19 August 2005)

v1.02 (20 December 2004)

v1.01 (20 August 2004)

3 July 2004

v1.0 (29 January 2003)