Opening apps from the command line???

On 12/30/18 1:53 AM, Lucifer wrote:
On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 00:02:15 -0800, T wrote:

On 12/29/18 7:51 PM, Lucifer wrote:

Not following you. There is no 29th month.


On Fri, 28 Dec 2018 16:43:23 -0800, T wrote:

Hi All,

Anyone have an easier way to open an app from the command line
than these two:


https://www.tenforums.com/software-a...mand-line.html


https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-80e40ed14675

Built in command prompt.

Not following you. This is Metro apps I am after.

Open command prompt. Type program name. Press enter.
You're welcome.


Ahhhh, I confusing metro apps with standard programs

T wrote:
On 12/30/18 1:53 AM, Lucifer wrote:
On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 00:02:15 -0800, T wrote:

On 12/29/18 7:51 PM, Lucifer wrote:

Not following you. There is no 29th month.


On Fri, 28 Dec 2018 16:43:23 -0800, T wrote:

Hi All,

Anyone have an easier way to open an app from the command line
than these two:


https://www.tenforums.com/software-a...mand-line.html



https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-80e40ed14675


Built in command prompt.

Not following you. This is Metro apps I am after.

Open command prompt. Type program name. Press enter.
You're welcome.


Ahhhh, I confusing metro apps with standard programs

I can only get the settings wheel to work

start ms-settings:

The other ones put up a dialog which is useless,
so something broke in the later Win10 releases.

One other thing I was trying to track down, is where
the "short name" like "ms-settings" is stored. The
Repository SQLite file doesn't seem to have a field for
that, and I somehow doubt the short name is automatically
derived from the package name.

Extracting some of the code from here and making your
own "Start", might work.

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/pavely/...grammatically/

Paul

Paul wrote:

I can only get the settings wheel to work

Â*Â* start ms-settings:

The other ones put up a dialog which is useless,
so something broke in the later Win10 releases.

One other thing I was trying to track down, is where
the "short name" like "ms-settings" is stored.

I drew a blank looking for "special" entries e.g. from assoc or ftype

This method getting some info from get-appxpackage and other from within
the manifest worked for me

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_store/starting-windows-10-store-app-from-the-command/836354c5-b5af-4d6c-b414-80e40ed14675

e.g. following their example, but for 3Dviewer instead of Bing Weather,
I used (all on one line)

explorer.exe
shell:appsFolder\Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer_8weky b3d8bbwe!Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer

Andy Burns wrote:
Paul wrote:

I can only get the settings wheel to work

start ms-settings:

The other ones put up a dialog which is useless,
so something broke in the later Win10 releases.

One other thing I was trying to track down, is where
the "short name" like "ms-settings" is stored.

I drew a blank looking for "special" entries e.g. from assoc or ftype

This method getting some info from get-appxpackage and other from within
the manifest worked for me

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_store/starting-windows-10-store-app-from-the-command/836354c5-b5af-4d6c-b414-80e40ed14675


e.g. following their example, but for 3Dviewer instead of Bing Weather,
I used (all on one line)

explorer.exe
shell:appsFolder\Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer_8weky b3d8bbwe!Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer


That's where writing your own "Start" would come in, packaging the
system "IApplicationActivationManager" routine and coming up
with some short names to identify what you want to launch.

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/pavely/...grammatically/

I tried using the recipe that makes Shortcut icons from things
in the AppFolder, and you're not allowed to edit the Shortcut.
Which kinda negates the utility, if you cannot *copy*
the string in the shortcut and use it for nefarious
(scripting) purposes. I have ways I could access that
shortcut - they can't stop me - but it's inconvenient
to have to reach for a hammer, every time you want
to "drive a screw".

It's entirely weird as to how many roadblocks there are.
Why do they even bother teasing us with this crap ???

I guess "start" comes from a prior era, where it was
used to launch win32 stuff or something.

Paul

On Mon, 31 Dec 2018 04:43:38 -0500, Paul wrote:

I guess "start" comes from a prior era, where it was
used to launch win32 stuff or something.

Hi Paul,
I admit almost completely ignorance on "Metro" stuff.
I've never once used the "App Store" (& hope to never do).
I even think I disabled it (but I don't wanna look now how).

The question is just "What is Metro" on a typical Win10 box?
I noticed you mentioned "Edge" is "Metro".
But Edge is likely extremely "special" with lots of MS tricks.

What else is normally on my system (Win10 Pro) that is "Metro"?

I ask because I just wanna test whether the "App Paths" key will work.
What "Metro" app do you suggest I test with the "App Paths" key?

arlen holder wrote:
On Mon, 31 Dec 2018 04:43:38 -0500, Paul wrote:

I guess "start" comes from a prior era, where it was
used to launch win32 stuff or something.

Hi Paul,
I admit almost completely ignorance on "Metro" stuff.
I've never once used the "App Store" (& hope to never do).
I even think I disabled it (but I don't wanna look now how).

The question is just "What is Metro" on a typical Win10 box?
I noticed you mentioned "Edge" is "Metro".
But Edge is likely extremely "special" with lots of MS tricks.

What else is normally on my system (Win10 Pro) that is "Metro"?

I ask because I just wanna test whether the "App Paths" key will work.
What "Metro" app do you suggest I test with the "App Paths" key?

There's "Groove" and the "Photo App" that they keep
promoting.

The Start menu should provide more hints.

Paul

On Mon, 31 Dec 2018 09:22:44 -0500, Paul wrote:

There's "Groove" and the "Photo App" that they keep
promoting.

The Start menu should provide more hints.

Hehhehheh ... my entire "Start Menu" is completely blank
(both sides, right and left), as the right side tiled part (Orthodox)
kept popping up every time I pressed the Windows key accidentally
too strongly when attempting to print screen to a file - and -
the left side - which was alphabetical - was completely worthless
being unorganized as such.

Instead I use cascade accordion-style (WinXP) style native Win10 menus
which are merely folders pinned to the task bar.

Plus, I never install anything where I don't know where it goes.
I'm organized, where I use C:\app\editor\vid\Media Player for music.

I've long ago deleted "Groove Music" and all the idiotic "Photo Apps"
(3D crap comes to mind) that came with Windows as part of the first 200
things to do when setting up a new Windows system (or at least I had tried).
o Shift-RMB-Start Windows PowerShell (Admin) get-appxpackage *Microsoft.ZuneMusic* | remove-appxpackage Microsoft.ZuneMusic_10.18102.10531.0_x64__8wekyb3d 8bbwe

Looking to confirm that Groove Music was deleted, I ran:
o Shift-RMB-Start Windows PowerShell (Admin) Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | findstr "InstallLocation" | findstr "Microsoft.ZuneMusic"

Huh? It's still there, dammit! I had _thought_ I had deleted it, long ago.

PS C:\Windows\system32 Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | findstr "Microsoft.ZuneMusic"
Name : Microsoft.ZuneMusic
PackageFullName : Microsoft.ZuneMusic_10.18102.10531.0_x64__8wekyb3d 8bbwe
PackageFamilyName : Microsoft.ZuneMusic_8wekyb3d8bbwe

Googling, I found the executable is "supposed" to be he
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.ZuneMusic_10.18102.105 31.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe

Which kind of sort of (different version?) was still the
PS: cd "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\"
PS: dir *Zune*
Which reported:
Microsoft.ZuneVideo_10.18102.12011.0_x64__8wekyb3d 8bbwe

Which kind of sort of makes the "executable" path:
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.ZuneVideo_10.18102.120 11.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe

Which, when I ran from a command-line Administrator prompt
"C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.ZuneVideo_10.18102.120 11.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe"

Which reported:
'"C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.ZuneVideo_10.18102.120 11.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe"'
is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

It failed.
So I gave up.

Paul wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

explorer.exe
shell:appsFolder\Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer_8weky b3d8bbwe!Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer

That's where writing your own "Start" would come in

Here's a fragment of powershell, make sure the app name (which is used
as a wildcard) matches exactly one metro app, if you pick a package
containing multiple apps, it'll probably launch them all

$app = "3dview";

get-appxPackage -name ("*" + $app + "*") | forEach-object {
$pfn = $_.packageFamilyName;
$il = $_.installLocation;
[xml]$manifest = get-content (join-path -path $il -childPath
"appxManifest.xml");
$manifest.package.applications.application | forEach-object {
start-process -filePath "explorer.exe" -argumentList
("shell:appsFolder\" + $pfn + "!" + $_.id);
}
}

Andy Burns wrote:

Here's a fragment of powershell

Of course, it was irresistible from there to run every metro app
(starting too many at once tends to overwhelm explorer.exe hence the 3
second delay) I didn't notice anything try to run format C: but YMMV, I
did notice a few apps I didn't know existed e.g.
Microsoft Pay
Windows Barcode Preview
Snip and Sketch



get-appxPackage *|%{
$p = $_.packageFamilyName;
$x = join-path $_.installLocation 'appxManifest.xml';
[xml]$m = gc $x;
$m.package.applications.application|%{
if ($_.id -ne $null){
$a = "shell:appsFolder\$p!" + $_.id;
echo $a;
& 'explorer.exe' $a;
sleep 3;
}}}

Andy Burns wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:

Here's a fragment of powershell

Of course, it was irresistible from there to run every metro app
(starting too many at once tends to overwhelm explorer.exe hence the 3
second delay) I didn't notice anything try to run format C: but YMMV, I
did notice a few apps I didn't know existed e.g.
Microsoft Pay
Windows Barcode Preview
Snip and Sketch



get-appxPackage *|%{
$p = $_.packageFamilyName;
$x = join-path $_.installLocation 'appxManifest.xml';
[xml]$m = gc $x;
$m.package.applications.application|%{
if ($_.id -ne $null){
$a = "shell:appsFolder\$p!" + $_.id;
echo $a;
& 'explorer.exe' $a;
sleep 3;
}}}

So what happens when Explorer is overwhelmed ?

Does it slow down the launching to have too many
start simultaneously ?

What you'd really want, is a system resource you could
use to tell the App is "Up" and has stopped sucking files
off the disk. That would likely be a hard thing for the
OS to determine. When MSEdge becomes Chrome and uses
four or five processes, you'd want to wait until
the entire "fleet" was launched :-)

Paul

Paul wrote:

So what happens when Explorer is overwhelmed ?
The machine goes on its knees (recovers eventually after a couple of
minutes) and some of the apps give an error dialogue instead of launching.

Andy Burns wrote:
Paul wrote:

So what happens when Explorer is overwhelmed ?
The machine goes on its knees (recovers eventually after a couple of
minutes) and some of the apps give an error dialogue instead of launching.

Todd will like that. He'll get to spend more time with customers.

Paul

On 12/31/18 11:55 PM, Paul wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
Paul wrote:

So what happens when Explorer is overwhelmed ?
The machine goes on its knees (recovers eventually after a couple of
minutes) and some of the apps give an error dialogue instead of
launching.

Todd will like that. He'll get to spend more time with customers.

Â*Â* Paul

Todd does not like it when he can not give customer's good
service.

On 12/29/18 9:13 PM, Paul wrote:
T wrote:
On 12/29/18 8:45 AM, Paul wrote:
Â* I tried to run the .exe in a
Metro App folder, and... nothing happened.

Same experience with Word 365.Â* Nothing happened


Information about Metro Apps is stored in a database.

https://s8.postimg.cc/fd3htvlg5/sqli..._fix_first.gif

In that example, I'm using "DB Browser for SQLite" (aka
"SQLiteBrowser.exe")
to examine the Windows 10 "StateRepository-Machine.srd". I made a copy
of the file (offline) so I could look at it in peace. (Usually,
your first problem will be finding it, as the naive searches
Windows does, don't give results everywhere.)

While there are Powershell commands to ferret out most
of the information, if any more of those "colon" things
were hiding, that's where I might take a look to
get their names.

The reason I was editing the Metro Repository info was
in an attempt to delete MSEdge (part of a bar bet).
All I succeeded in doing, was blanking an icon, and
it was all still there. It's not really deleted.
It's only a flesh wound.

https://s8.postimg.cc/sh926ql9h/half_done.gif

The only other thing I've seen in my travels, is there is
a folder path with "VFS" as one of the path elements. That
apparently stands for Virtual File System. In there, I was
finding some sort of Office materials, even though I don't
have any purchased or rented Office on the machine. When I
wanted to delete the structure down there (as part of
some other experiment), that area was virtually impossible
to delete. CleanMgr could do it, as long as the folder
in question was inside Windows.old. When CleanMgr cleans it,
it is removed in a context-sensitive way. Some part of that
VFS structure is a reparse point (custom file system feature),
which means if you went at it with Linux, you'd most likely
get "I/O Error" because Linux would not have code to handle
whatever custom feature that is.

Â*Â* Paul

Yikes!