launching programmes with a bat file

[topr8]

i have multiple monitors and wish to run a slideshow in each one.

i can do this with various programmes available on the net, my favourite is simply called 'slideshow'.

however i would like to launch all of them from a single bat file.

unfortunately i cannot, i assume because the slideshow is on a continuous loop, ... the bat file will launch the first slideshow but will not launch the next one, unless i manually close the first. if i have 3 seperate bat files which i click on in turn, all 3 slideshows launch and display no problem.

my code is something like this

slideshow "filepath to first folder of images"
slideshow "filepath to second folder of images"
slideshow "filepath to third folder of images"

each line works, eg if i run the bat file then the first slideshow launches and displays, each line is coded correctly.

however it will not proceed while the first slideshow is still showing.

is there a way around this? am i looking at this the wrong way.

basically i'd like to launch all 3 slideshows by clicking one bat icon on the desktop, not to have to click 3 icons.

any ideas?

[bill]

That's the way batch files work. They wait for the first command to be completed before moving on to the next. Perhaps a bat file to execute other batch files would be quicker?

I haven't tried this, but would something like this work?

Batch file #1

slideshow1.bat
slideshow2.bat
slideshow3.bat

Then each of the slideshow(1-3).bat files would contain a single slideshow execution. It might not be simultaneous, but it might execute faster than one single file.

[topr8]

thanks for that bill, that was a good idea but it didn't work, calling the other batch files still stopped at the first one.

however i discovered that there is a 'start' command that can be used with batch files.

so the solution i came up with was a single batch file, with 3 lines:

start "" slideshow.exe (parameters/switches for 1st slideshow)
start "" slideshow.exe (parameters/switches for 2nd slideshow)
start "" slideshow.exe (parameters/switches for 3rd slideshow)

which meant the slideshow was launched 3 times, nearly simultaneously, and all 3 slideshows loop continuously.

so i'm happy - for now!

[not sure why the empty double quotes are required, but they seem to be]