GoRun, a launcher utility. Download: GoRun Launcher Utility (17K) Feel free to send your comments to me at krick@3feetunder.com Here's the readme file for gorun: GoRun.exe v0.1 launcher utility by William Krick 2001-11-16 William Krick the copyright owner of the GoRun utility, grants a non-exclusive license without charge to an individual who intends to use the GoRun program for non-commercial purposes. This freeware version of GoRun is distributed AS IS and without any warranties. Freeware users may distribute GoRun, as long as the package is not altered and remains as a whole. However, for distribution on a commercial basis, (even in a Freeware distribution CD-ROM, or download service), you must obtain a written permission from William Krick. GoRun.exe overview: ====================================================================== 1. launch a document with its default browser/application: syntax examples... GoRun myfile.htm GoRun c:\myfile.doc GoRun "c:\my documents\myfile.txt" 2. launch another executable file: syntax examples... GoRun myprog.exe GoRun myprog.bat GoRun c:\myprog.js GoRun "c:\my documents\myprog.exe" 3. launch another executable with command line parameters: syntax examples... GoRun c:\jdk\bin\javaw.exe -jar Test.jar GoRun c:\jdk\bin\javaw.exe -jar c:\Test.jar GoRun c:\jdk\bin\javaw.exe -jar "c:\my documents\Test.jar" GoRun "C:\Program Files\Vendor\The Application\App.exe" -v -nointro 4. if you run GoRun with no parameters, the program looks for a file called gorun.ini in the same directory. if it exists, it reads the first line in the file and attempts to execute it in the same way as the other examples above. example: a file named gorun.ini is in the same directory as GoRun.exe and the first line is: "C:\Program Files\Vendor\The Application\App.exe" -v -nointro if you then run GoRun without any parameters, you get the same effect as if you ran this from the command line: GoRun "C:\Program Files\Vendor\The Application\App.exe" -v -nointro ====================================================================== ====================================================================== Two good uses for GoRun.exe: ====================================================================== 1. Creating your own autoplay CD-Rs just make a file called autorun.inf in the root of the CD in the file put the following three lines (modifing the filenames as appropriate for your document and icon names): [AutoRun] ICON=someicon.ico OPEN=GoRun mypage.htm then when the cd is put into a windows computer that has autoplay enabled, your document will automatically launch. You can also launch executables as well as documents. 2. Running .BAT, .JS, .JAR, etc... files from another program that requires an EXE extension. Note: this is the actual situation that prompted me to write GoRun.exe, the story is true but the names have been changed to protect the guilty! For example, you are trying to integrate your product with another product that can call your program with parameters and capture your program's output for its own use. The problem is that the other products programmers decided that it would be a good idea to make their program reject any attempt to call another program if the extension isn't EXE. It turns out that your program is written in java and you have packaged it into an executable JAR file. The only way to get the other product to work with yours is to use an intermediate launcher that has an EXE extension like this: GoRun.exe "c:\my documents\Test.jar" I know you're probably saying, "Hey, why not call javaw.exe with your jar file as a parameter and skip GoRun.exe altogether" like this... c:\jdk\bin\javaw.exe -jar "c:\My Documents\Test.jar" Well, what if the other product's programmers, in their infinite wisdom, also decided to change your input filename and parameters to upper case after they read it in for some unknown reason... C:\JDK\BIN\JAVAW.EXE -JAR "C:\MY DOCUMENTS\TEST.JAR" now, Javaw.exe being case sensitive, has no idea what "-JAR" means (instead of "-jar") and even if it could, it still can't find "TEST.JAR" because the file is actually "Test.jar" Now the only way around this is to put the following line in GoRun.ini c:\jdk\bin\javaw.exe -jar "c:\My Documents\Test.jar" and then have the other program just run GoRun.exe without parameters. Problem solved!