Program-addon for Total Commander NoClose Replacer

This program is a replacer for the noclose.pif file which is used by the file manager Total Commander for starting console applications without automatic closing the colsole window (usually, the console window disappears as soon as the program finishes, but if you press Shift+Enter, it will remain visible until you close it manually). When installing Total Commander the file noclose.pif is copied into the Windows directory. This file is a usual PIF-file for the program command.com: command processor included in Windows installation. The parameters of this PIF-file are set so that the the console did not close automatically. On pressing Shift+Enter, the file manager just starts the file noclose.pif with /C command-line parameter. This leads to starting of command.com /C which runs the program or command specified by the user.

However, this approach is old and has some inconveniences. First of all, command.com cannot work properly with file names containing space characters. So, one cannot start in such a way some program which path contains spaces: he will just get a message that the file was not found. The second disadvantage is that after finishing the console program is inactive, one cannot start another program in it. Of course, this is not needed for everyone, but the principal impossibility to have what you need is a drawback. And the third shortcoming of this approach is that the console window can be closed only by the title bar button or through the system menu, and that is inconvenient for those who works mainly with keyboard.

In Windows 9x these problems are still actual (though there are several third-party programs). As concerns Windows based on NT kernel (Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, etc.), they have another command processor — cmd.exe, which is much more powerful and convenient than command.com. It understands long file names with spaces and allows by means of command-line switch /K leave the console window active after the program is finished. Unfortunately, there is no way to make Total Commander use this command processor. So, I had to use abnormal one. :-)

The file noclose.pif present in the archive is a usual program file renamed into PIF. This program replaces the standard noclose.pif and start what you want with the parameters that you want instead of command.com. The command line for starting can be changed in configuration file NoClose.ini (see ReadMe file in the archive for description of the format and possible parameters). Now you have possibility to configure the behaviour of Shift+Enter hotkey for your needs. You can start cmd.exe (it is specified as default), any other command interpreter, and also BAT or CMD files which can perform several consecutive commands.

Download links:

	Program	Version	Size	Download
	NoClose Replacer	1.2	19 833 bytes
		1.1	19 294 bytes
		1.0	6 508 bytes