Shortcut on thumb drive to run video files

We need to create easy way for faculty to start VLC Media Player Portable on a flash drive. Regular Windows shortcuts contain drive letter, so they would not work on every computer.

Solution:  create CLICK-TO-START.CMD file with following text:

start "\VLCfolder\VLCportable.exe"  "\pathToVideo\video-file-name.mpeg"


START "program on thumb drive" "file to open on thumb drive"


Information on START command:

C:\Users\Everyday\Documents>start /?
Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.

START ["title"] [/D path] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
[/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
[/NODE ] [/AFFINITY ] [/WAIT] [/B]
[command/program] [parameters]

"title" Title to display in window title bar.
path Starting directory.
B Start application without creating a new window. The application has ^C handling ignored. Unless the application enables ^C processing, ^Break is the only way to interrupt
the application.
I       The new environment will be the original environment passed
to the cmd.exe and not the current environment.
MIN    Start window minimized.
MAX   Start window maximized.
SEPARATE    Start 16-bit Windows program in separate memory space.
SHARED      Start 16-bit Windows program in shared memory space.
LOW       Start application in the IDLE priority class.
NORMAL Start application in the NORMAL priority class.
HIGH Start application in the HIGH priority class.
REALTIME Start application in the REALTIME priority class.
ABOVENORMAL Start application in the ABOVENORMAL priority class.
BELOWNORMAL Start application in the BELOWNORMAL priority class.
NODE Specifies the preferred Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA)
node as a decimal integer.
AFFINITY Specifies the processor affinity mask as a hexadecimal number.
The process is restricted to running on these processors.

The affinity mask is interpreted differently when /AFFINITY and /NODE are combined. Specify the affinity mask as if the NUMA node's processor mask is right shifted to begin at bit zero.
The process is restricted to running on those processors in common between the specified affinity mask and the NUMA node.
If no processors are in common, the process is restricted to running on the specified NUMA node.
WAIT Start application and wait for it to terminate.

command/program
If it is an internal cmd command or a batch file then the command processor is run with the /K switch to cmd.exe. This means that the window will remain after the command has been run.

If it is not an internal cmd command or batch file then it is a program and will run as either a windowed application or a console application.

parameters These are the parameters passed to the command/program.

NOTE: The SEPARATE and SHARED options are not supported on 64-bit platforms.

Specifying /NODE allows processes to be created in a way that leverages memory
locality on NUMA systems. For example, two processes that communicate with
each other heavily through shared memory can be created to share the same
preferred NUMA node in order to minimize memory latencies. They allocate
memory from the same NUMA node when possible, and they are free to run on
processors outside the specified node.

start /NODE 1 application1.exe
start /NODE 1 application2.exe

These two processes can be further constrained to run on specific processors
within the same NUMA node. In the following example, application1 runs on the
low-order two processors of the node, while application2 runs on the next two
processors of the node. This example assumes the specified node has at least
four logical processors. Note that the node number can be changed to any valid
node number for that computer without having to change the affinity mask.

start /NODE 1 /AFFINITY 0x3 application1.exe
start /NODE 1 /AFFINITY 0xc application2.exe

If Command Extensions are enabled, external command invocation
through the command line or the START command changes as follows:

non-executable files may be invoked through their file association just
by typing the name of the file as a command. (e.g. WORD.DOC would
launch the application associated with the .DOC file extension).
See the ASSOC and FTYPE commands for how to create these
associations from within a command script.

When executing an application that is a 32-bit GUI application, CMD.EXE
does not wait for the application to terminate before returning to
the command prompt. This new behavior does NOT occur if executing
within a command script.

When executing a command line whose first token is the string "CMD "
without an extension or path qualifier, then "CMD" is replaced with
the value of the COMSPEC variable. This prevents picking up CMD.EXE
from the current directory.