How to launch a program with a command line argument from Search or from Start/Metro in Windows 8 / Windows 10?

Question

In Windows 7, I could launch a program like Notepad and pass it a command-line argument (the path and filename of a document to open) by typing:

notepad c:\users\jon\myfile.txtEnter

In Windows 8 and Windows 10, although either of the following work fine to launch Notepad:

notepadEnter (via the Start page / Metro UI)

+SnotepadEnter (via the Search charm)

Adding a command-line argument as in the original example above does not work. It causes Windows to not find the program. (Windows 10 launches a web search for whatever I typed instead of running the program.)

So I have had to adjust my workflow in Windows 8/10 to (1) launch the application, and then (2) manually bring up a File Open dialog from within the application to load by document. It's annoying having to do in two separate steps what I used to be able to accomplish in Windows 7 with just one.

Running the application via +R (the old Windows XP style Run dialog) with command line arguments works, but only for applications that are on the Path -- not for applications that Windows can find via its Search feature.

Is there any way to get my original example above working under Windows 8/10?

Answer 1

Probably, they fixed this in Windows 10 since the question was asked, but this works for me out of the box:

WIN, notepad test

The second entry in the result list allows to run the notepad application with the test command line argument. (The "Best match" first entry starts a search). So you then need to press Down and then Enter to run the command.

As soon as I type either a file extension or a path separator, the "run command" entry becomes the first "Best match" entry. So, after typing

WIN, notepad.exe test

WIN, notepad test.txt

WIN, notepad c:\

- I then only need to press Enter to run the notepad application with the command line arguments.

To allow a custom application to be run the same way, it can be added to the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths registry key like the following (replace the values below with the needed values):

Add key someapp.exe with the following string values:

(Default) : C:\Path to app\someapp.exe

Path : C:\Path to app\

This is the same way which allows to run some custom application from the Windows Run (WIN+R) dialog, even if the application is not in the PATH environmental variable.