[windows] Set The Window Position of an application via command line

I have an application which start in 0x0 position of my desktop. I want to open it in center of my desktop. I do not want to open it and use a move command to move it into center, just want my app to start immediately in center position.

Is there any way to do this via command prompt? Any other way?

Bill K.'s answer was the most elegant if you just want to start a window at startup or start from a shortcut on the desktop.

Just open the window where you want it, right click and choose properties. select Layout uncheck "let system position window" and click OK.

Window will now open just where you want it. You can set font and window colors at the same time on other tabs. sweet.

This probably should be a comment under the cmdow.exe answer, but here is a simple batch file I wrote to allow for fairly sophisticated and simple control over all windows that you can see in the taskbar.

First step is to run cmdow /t to display a list of those windows. Look at what the image name is in the column Image, then command line:

mycmdowscript.cmd imagename

Here are the contents of the batch file:

:: mycmdowscript.cmd

@echo off
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION

SET IMAGE=%1
SET ACTION=/%2
SET REST=1
SET PARAMS=

:: GET ANY ADDITIONAL PARAMS AND STORE THEM IN A VARIABLE

FOR %%I in (%*) DO (
   IF !REST! geq 3 (
      SET PARAMS=!PARAMS! %%I
   )
   SET /A REST+=1
)

FOR /F "USEBACKQ tokens=1,8" %%I IN (`CMDOW /t`) DO (
     IF %IMAGE%==%%J (

     :: you now have access to the handle in %%I
     cmdow %%I %ACTION% !PARAMS!

     )
)

ENDLOCAL
@echo on

EXIT /b

example usage

:: will set notepad to 500 500

mycmdowscript.cmd notepad siz 500 500

You could probably rewrite this to allow for multiple actions on a single command, but I haven't tried yet.

For this to work, cmdow.exe must be located in your path. Beware that when you download this, your AV program might yell at you. This tool has (I guess) in the past been used by malware authors to manipulate windows. It is not harmful by itself.

Thanks To FuzzyWuzzy , set the following code ( Quick & Dirty Example for 1920x1080 screen resolution - without automatic width and height calculation or function use etc ) in AutoHotKey to achive the following :

v_cmd = c:\temp\1st_Monitor.ps1
Run, Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File %v_cmd%
SetTitleMatchMode 2
SetTitleMatchMode Fast
WinWait, PowerShell
Sleep, 1000
    ;A = Active window - [x,y,width,height]
WinMove A,, 0, 0,1920,500

v_cmd = c:\temp\2nd_Monitor.ps1
Run, Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File %v_cmd%
WinWait, PowerShell
Sleep, 1000
    ;A = Active window - [x,y,width,height]
WinMove A,, 0, 500,960,400

v_cmd = c:\temp\3rd_Monitor.ps1
Run, Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File %v_cmd%
WinWait, PowerShell
Sleep, 1000
    ;A = Active window - [x,y,width,height]
WinMove A,, 960, 500,960,400

SMALL EDIT same code with Auto X / Y screen size calculation [ 4 monitors ], yet, can be used for 3 / 2 monitors as well.

Screen_X = %A_ScreenWidth%
Screen_Y = %A_ScreenHeight%

v_cmd = c:\temp\1st_Monitor.ps1
Run, Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File %v_cmd%
SetTitleMatchMode 2
SetTitleMatchMode Fast
WinWait, PowerShell
Sleep, 1000
    ;A = Active window - [x,y,width,height]
WinMove A,, 0, 0,Screen_X/2,Screen_Y/2

v_cmd = c:\temp\2nd_Monitor.ps1
Run, Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File %v_cmd%
WinWait, PowerShell
Sleep, 1000
    ;A = Active window - [x,y,width,height]
WinMove A,, Screen_X/2, 0,Screen_X/2,Screen_Y/2

v_cmd = c:\temp\3rd_Monitor.ps1
Run, Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File %v_cmd%
WinWait, PowerShell
Sleep, 1000
    ;A = Active window - [x,y,width,height]
WinMove A,, 0, Screen_Y/2,Screen_X/2,Screen_Y/2

v_cmd = c:\temp\4th_Monitor.ps1
Run, Powershell.exe -executionpolicy remotesigned -File %v_cmd%
WinWait, PowerShell
Sleep, 1000
    ;A = Active window - [x,y,width,height]
WinMove A,, Screen_X/2, Screen_Y/2,Screen_X/2,Screen_Y/2

You can use nircmd project here: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

Example code:

nircmd win move ititle "cmd.exe" 5 5 10 10
nircmd win setsize ititle "cmd.exe" 30 30 100 200
nircmd cmdwait 1000 win setsize ititle "cmd.exe" 30 30 1000 600

I just found this question while on a quest to do the same thing.

After some experimenting I came across an answer that works the way the OQ would want and is simple as heck, but not very general purpose.

Create a shortcut on your desktop or elsewhere (you can use the create-shortcut helper from the right-click menu), set it to run the program "cmd.exe" and run it. When the window opens, position it where you want your window to be. To save that position, bring up the properties menu and hit "Save".

Now if you want you can also set other properties like colors and I highly recommend changing the buffer to be a width of 120-240 and the height to 9999 and enable quick edit mode (why aren't these the defaults!?!)

Now you have a shortcut that will work. Make one of these for each CMD window you want opened at a different location.

Now for the trick, the windows CMD START command can run shortcuts. You can't programmatically reposition the windows before launch, but at least it comes up where you want and you can launch it (and others) from a batch file or another program.

Using a shortcut with cmd /c you can create one shortcut that can launch ALL your links at once by using a command that looks like this:

cmd /c "start cmd_link1 && start cmd_link2 && start cmd_link3"

This will open up all your command windows to your favorite positions and individually set properties like foreground color, background color, font, administrator mode, quick-edit mode, etc... with a single click. Now move that one "link" into your startup folder and you've got an auto-state restore with no external programs at all.

This is a pretty straight-forward solution. It's not general purpose, but I believe it will solve the problem that most people reading this question are trying to solve.

I did this recently so I'll post my cmd file here:

cd /d C:\shortucts
for %%f in (*.lnk *.rdp *.url) do start %%f
exit

Late EDIT: I didn't mention that if the original cmd /c command is run elevated then every one of your windows can (if elevation was selected) start elevated without individually re-prompting you. This has been really handy as I start 3 cmd windows and 3 other apps all elevated every time I start my computer.

If you are happy to run a batch file along with a couple of tiny helper programs, a complete solution is posted here:
How can a batch file run a program and set the position and size of the window? - Stack Overflow (asked: May 1, 2012)

Have found that AutoHotKey is very good for window positioning tasks.

Here is an example script. Call it notepad.ahk and then run it from the command line or double click on it.

Run, notepad.exe
WinWait, ahk_class Notepad
WinActivate
WinMove A,, 10, 10, A_ScreenWidth-20, A_ScreenHeight-20

It will start an application (notepad) and then adjust the window size so that it is centered in the window with a 10 pixel border on all sides.