Hiding Console Application Windows

With the simple free source code and executable application below you can launch and run multiple console applications using cmd.exe without displaying the console window. This code eliminates the need to build a service, and is a useful complement to the Distributed Scraping With Multiple Tor Circuits article for those running Tor under the Microsoft Windows operating system. It includes a batch file to enable you to run multiple Tor proxies. Other companies charge for a similar application.

Application

You can download the application hideconsole.exe here.

Code

This is the simple code. If you want to download the entire Visual Studio 2010 project or fork it please use the github project.

// hideconsole.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//

#include "stdafx.h"
#include "windows.h"
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <stdio.h>

namespace std
{
#ifdef _UNICODE
	typedef wstring tstring;
	#define tout std::wcout
#else
	typedef string tstring;
	#define tout std::cout
#endif
}
using namespace std;

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
	if(argc == 1) {
		//wprintf(_T("Usage: %s <cmd> [<parameter1>..<parametern>]"));
		tout << "Usage: " << argv[0] << " <cmd> [<parameter1>..<parametern>]" << endl;
		return 0;
	}

	tstring file = argv[1];
	tstring parameters;

	for(int i=2; i < argc; i++) {
		if( i != 2)
			parameters.append(_T(" "));
		parameters.append(argv[i]);
	}

	ShellExecute(NULL, _T("open"), file.c_str(), parameters.c_str(), NULL, SW_HIDE);
	tout << "Running cmd = " << file << endl;
	tout << "Arguments = " << parameters << endl;

	return 0;
}

Batch for Running Multiple Tor Instances

mytor.bat

@echo off
echo %3%
IF EXIST data\tor%3 GOTO DATASUBDIREXISTS
	mkdir data\tor%3
:DATASUBDIREXISTS
.\hideconsole.exe c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /k """"""c:\Program Files (x86)\tor\tor.exe""" --RunAsDaemon 1 --CookieAuthentication 0 --HashedControlPassword """" --SocksListenAddress 192.168.0.178 --ControlPort %2 --PidFile tor%3.pid --SocksPort %1 --DataDirectory data\tor%3""""

start-multiple-tor.bat

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set /A base_socks_port=9050
set /A base_control_port=8118
set /A idx=0

IF EXIST data GOTO DATAEXISTS
mkdir data

:DATAEXISTS

FOR /L %%i IN (1,1,80) DO (
	call .\mytor !base_socks_port! !base_control_port! !idx!
	set /A base_socks_port+=1
	set /A base_control_port+=1
	set /A idx+=1
	rem echo !idx!
)

Note

• The multiple quotes that you see in the batch file are necessary since we are escaping quotes three times.

Resources

1. CMD.EXE: Escape Characters, Delimiters and Quotes
2. CMD.EXE Escape Character, Caret. OK, But What About Backslash?

Image by william