How do I tell a windows batch script to execute the next line without waiting for the previous line to finish executing?
<p>I'm setting up a .cmd script to be run on startup for a pseudo-server (It's actually a laptop, but that's irrelevant) to automatically launch pageant, load an SSH key, connect to an SSH server using Putty (Pageant would automatically authenticate with the key), then launch mIRC which in turn has a series of scripts setup to operate as an IRC bot and automatically connect to networks using putty as an SSH tunnel.</p>

<p>With that in mind, I have the below code in a startup.cmd file:</p>

<pre><code>"C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\pageant.exe" c:\Path\To\Private\Key.ppk
"C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\putty.exe" -ssh user@host
"C:\Program Files (x86)\mIRC\mirc.exe"

EXIT
</code></pre>

<p>When I test run this file, the command prompt runs the first line, launches pageant, and then sits there and does nothing until I close pageant completely. I believe I have an idea on what the issue here is, but I can't find any information on how to resolve this in a batch file.</p>

<p>I do know on linux systems, if I were running a bash script to do something similar, I would want to have a &amp; symbol at the end of each line to tell it to run the next command without waiting for the previous command to finish executing. I did try that in the batch script in the off chance that would work (It didn't).</p>

<p>For those who may ask, this is on Windows 8.1 64 bit. The user running this script is not an administrator.</p>