Sometimes we want to run programs after a few minutes or seconds. There could also be a situation when we want to run certain programs at a specific time. In both the situations we can use a little free utility called DelayExec. It is portable and runs on all versions of Windows.
DelayExec is a very useful utility for Windows that allows the users to run applications after a delay. It is a command line interface tool so we have to use it from a command prompt window (cmd.exe). The very basic command line for using this program is : DelayExex [filename] [delayseconds].
The [filename] is the full path name of a program, a command, a batch script or common program. The [delayseconds] is the number of seconds after which the specified program is to be run. For example, if we want to run Windows Notepad after 30 seconds, then we will give the command:
DelayExex Notepad.exe 30
Other then these, there are two extra parameters that are supported: -max and -min. The -max is going to launch the specified program maximized while the -min parameter is going to launch the program minimized.
If you want to launch a program at a specific time then you have to count the number of seconds remaining between now and then. After this you can use the difference of seconds and give DelayExec command to delay launch a specific program.
For example, if you want to launch Windows Notepad at 9:00 PM, and the time now is 8:45 PM. The difference between the time is 15 minutes or 15×60 = 900 seconds. So we can give the following command:
DelayExec Notepad.exe 900
Obviously, we will have to run this command exactly at 8:45 PM. There could be a delay in running this command but that is expected because of manually typing it.
You can download DelayExec from http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/delayexec/.