Do not open shell when running system

Hi all,

I am running an optimization which uses an external program (Nastran) in its function evaluation.

I use the system() function to run nastran.

Everything runs fine but a windows shell pops up everytime, which is rather annoying since this is my only computer I can work on and the new window stops me from being able to type in my webbrowser (e.g. here) or any other place every 15seconds and I have to keep clicking the point where I was to continue..

Is there a way to make the shell run in the background so I can continue using my computer?

I've tried using the other ways I know to run external programs but ! and dos() basically have the same function as system() so that ofcourse doesn't help..

[jessupj]

have you tried '&' at the end of the system command? see doc for system()

i don't have accesst to a windows system with matlab at the moment, but it apparently works.

• If command includes the ampersand character (&), then status is the exit status when command starts

[ChrizzzlP]

I do use an & at the end (&& exit & to be exact so that the shell will close once Nastran is finished a few seconds later), but that doesn't stop the shell from popping up it only switches the control back to MATLAB while computations continue :(

[ChrizzzlP]

I found a similar question and their solution was to use system('start /b ' whatever I had before' &') but the start \b does unfortunately also not work for me, a command shell still pops up and interupts my typing..

[Michael Soskind]

So there is /b for background, and /min for minimized. Maybe you would be interested in using /min instead

[ChrizzzlP]

Unfortunately minimizing does not prevent the take-over and I still cannot continue typing normally