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How to pass additional command line arguments when launching windows store apps from command line?

asked 15 hours ago by @qa-h3bu2lirlegobarnt8g9 0 rep · 42 views

command line windows store apps command line arguments

WIndows store apps are special as they don't follow the usual norms of a windows application. Under normal circumstances, you cannot launch the application by opening its executable. Windows goes out of its way to hide the apps from you, then locks files behind permissions to prevent you from running them...

It's known how to launch them indirectly by gathering information about the app then specially crafting the command to launch it, just need the app package name and the identifier the app uses internally.

explorer shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

launches the Windows Terminal app, no bells or whistles

This works if you just want to launch it. But if you need to need to pass additional arguments to the app, adding them to the command breaks it and just launches the default explorer window.

explorer shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App -w working nt -d "C:\some\directory"

doesn't work

How can I launch a windows store application from the command line and pass it additional parameters?

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explorer shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App ... is the wrong launcher; use the start form or the Windows Terminal wt.exe alias.

From cmd.exe:

start "" shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App -w working nt -d "C:\some\directory"

For Windows Terminal, use the alias as it is the app's documented command-line entry point:

wt.exe -w working nt -d "C:\some\directory"

The explorer command launches the default window; extra tokens are passed to explorer.exe and not handled as Windows Terminal arguments. The start "" shell:AppsFolder\...!App ... form activates the shell item and passes remaining tokens as launch arguments.

This depends on the target app. Store/UWP apps only act on arguments that the app reads from its launch activation path; if an app ignores launch arguments, no command-line wrapper can make -w or -d work.

Dev Diaz · 0 rep · 15 hours ago

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