Windows 10 How to open a file with a specific program from cmd

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tinynja98

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Hello, I am trying to open a file [FILE] with a program [PROGRAM]. I have a shortcut of those two on my desktop. When i drag and drop [FILE] on top of [PROGRAM], it works as expected, meaning that [FILE] gets openend correctly by using [PROGRAM] to open it (Similarly to how you would drop a ".txt" file on top of Notepad to edit it.) Now, when I tried in the terminal to write this start "[PROGRAM]" "[FILE]", the program gets opened as if I simply double clicked on it, meaning that [FILE] does not get opened with [PROGRAM].

What does dragging and dropping [FILE] on top of [PROGRAM] do more than the command I ran which makes it work? And how can I achieve the same result via command line?

EDIT: Creating a shortcut (.lnk file) on desktop to ""[PROGRAM]" "[FILE]"" works as I want it to.
EDIT2: I found a solution to my initial problem by doing something similar to my first edit, but if you know why the start "[PROGRAM]" "[FILE]" command didn't work, I would be very interested to know.
 
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T
Well thanks for your reply it made me look a little deeper into this. After some research, I found that I should have used start "" "[PROGRAM]" "[FILE]" as the first quote is used as the title of the new cmd window that will get opened. Also, I realized that I was using PowerShell (never used it before, so I supposed it was the same thing as cmd ) when I did my tests before I posted this thread, and I tried with cmd.exe and it worked flawlessly with the command start "" "[PROGRAM]" "[FILE]". Powershell gives me an error when I try the last command.
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Isn't it that start opens a new CMD-window and that "[PROGRAM]" is not one of the options recognized by it?
Start a CMD-windows and type help and type later start /?
 
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Well thanks for your reply it made me look a little deeper into this. After some research, I found that I should have used start "" "[PROGRAM]" "[FILE]" as the first quote is used as the title of the new cmd window that will get opened. Also, I realized that I was using PowerShell (never used it before, so I supposed it was the same thing as cmd ) when I did my tests before I posted this thread, and I tried with cmd.exe and it worked flawlessly with the command start "" "[PROGRAM]" "[FILE]". Powershell gives me an error when I try the last command.
 
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Solution
Thanks for your reply, that explains it all.

And most of all
Welcome to this forum, keep joining us, keep enjoying yourself!
 
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Start is a CLI command in command prompt and Start is an alias for Start-Process in powershell. They don't quite accept the same arguments
 
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