How to prevent auto-closing of console after the execution of batch file

What command can I put at the end of a batch file to prevent auto-closing of the console after the execution of the file?

19 Answers

In Windows/DOS batch files:

pause 

This prints a nice "Press any key to continue . . . " message

Or, if you don't want the "Press any key to continue . . ." message, do this instead:

pause >nul 

Depends on the exact question!

Normally pause does the job within a .bat file.

If you want cmd.exe not to close to be able to remain typing, use cmd /k command at the end of the file.

If you want cmd.exe to not close, and able to continue to type, use cmd /k

Just felt the need to clarify what /k does (from windows website):

/k : Carries out the command specified by string and continues.

So cmd /k without follow up command at the end of bat file will just keep cmd.exe window open for further use.

On the other hand pause at the end of a batch file will simply pause the process and terminate cmd.exe on first button press

If you are using Maven and you want to skip the typing and prevent the console from close to see the result you need to use the CALL command in the script, besides just the 'mvn clean install'.

Like this will close the console

ECHO This is the wrong exemple mvn clean install pause 

Like this the console will stay open

ECHO This is the right exemple CALL mvn clean install pause 

If you dont use the CALL command neither of the pasts exemples will work. Because for some reason the default behaviour of cmd when calling another batch file (which mvn is in this case) is to essentially replace the current process with it, unlike calling an .exe

The below way of having commands in a batch file will open new command prompt windows and the new windows will not exit automatically.

start "title" call abcd.exe param1 param2 start "title" call xyz.exe param1 param2 

Add cmd.exe as a new line below the code you want to execute:

c:\Python27\python D:\code\simple_http_server.py cmd.exe 

my way is to write an actual batch (saying "foo.bat") to finish the job; then create another "start.bat":

@echo off cmd /k foo.bat 

I find this is extremely useful when I set up one-time environment variables.

Call cmd at the end of the batch file.

Had problems with the answers here, so I came up with this, which works for me (TM):

cmd /c node_modules\.bin\tsc cmd /c node rollup_build.js pause 

besides pause.

set /p= 

can be used .It will expect user input and will release the flow when enter is pressed.

or

runas /user:# "" >nul 2>&1 

which will do the same except nothing from the user input will be displayed nor will remain in the command history.

This little hack asks the user to enter a key and stores it into the variable %exitkey% (this variable could be called anything you like though).

set /p exitkey= "Press any key to continue..." 

NB: the space after the '=' is very important

I know I'm late but my preferred way is:

:programend pause>nul GOTO programend 

In this way the user cannot exit using enter.

Possibility 1: Just make 2 .bat files and write into the first:

start <filename> // name of 2nd batch file exit 

Batch file 2 is the file that wont close in the end. So now when you open batch nr.1 It will start the 2nd and cloe itself. When the 2nd finishes it will not close entirely (as long as you wont put exit at the end)

Possibility 2: Batch file 1:

call <filename> cls echo End of file pause <any code you want> 

When the 2nd file ends then it will proceed to file 1 again and output the rest of it. With that you can even make error handlers. If nr.1 crashes it goes into nr.2 and displays it

There are two ways to do it depend on use case

1) If you want Windows cmd prompt to stay open so that you can see execution result and close it afterwards; use

pause

2) if you want Windows cmd prompt to stay open and allow you to execute some command afterwords; use

cmd

pause 

or

echo text to display pause>nul 

Easy, add cmd to your last line of bat, BUT! if you reset or clear your system path, you must start your cmd with the full path, like:

%windir%\system32\cmd.exe 

For example, I have a bat file to reset jdk to old version like this:

PATH=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_45\bin;C:\apache-ant-1.7.1\bin SET JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_45 %windir%\system32\cmd.exe 

since I reset the system path, I have to run cmd with the full path, or the system can't find cmd.exe, it will fail to run cmd, and just close the window, and you can't see the error msg.

Run the .exe file and then pause the cmd

batch script example :

@echo off myProgram.exe PAUSE 

batch script example with arguments :

@echo off myProgram.exe argumentExample1 argumentExample2 PAUSE 

I added @echo off because I don't want to show C:\user\Desktop>myProgram.exe and C:\user\Desktop>PAUSE in the cmd

cmd /k cd C:\Projects.....

If you want your cmd opened at specific long location

add pause (if you don't want anything else to show up add) >nul
it should look like:

@echo off
title nice
echo hello
pause >nul

all you will see is "hello"