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I've just had two occurrences of windows 7 stalling an execution until I hit enter on the command prompt/powershell. Afterward execution seems to continue as expected.

First was an batch file of copy commands like 

copy //host/file2010-1*xml localfolder/01/
copy //host/file 2010-2*xml localfolder/02/

One file seemed to be taking ages. I checked the folder and it was complete, hit enter and suddenly it burst back into life to get the rest.

Second is a java program (an ETL job) in powershell which paused as it was about to output SQL duplicate key warnings. I cannot confirm if actual execution stalled but I suspect not. I have just repeated this one as I type.

Also my more experienced colleague has seen the same thing with .net programs he has written.

How can I avoid this? What am I missing? Does Windows get lonely and need a gentle push?

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    edit the settings om the command shell that you've opened up its been set to quick edit mode which you don't want in this case.
    – tony roth
    Sep 22, 2011 at 4:31
  • @tonyroth want to make that an answer so I can accept it. I doubt anyone knows why the copy task would've stalled.
    – KCD
    Sep 23, 2011 at 6:45
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    It stalled because you clicked on the window and the command prompt / powershell window switched to select mode. What tony roth said is why it would've stalled - and what to do about it.
    – TessellatingHeckler
    Sep 24, 2011 at 3:35
  • @TessellatingHeckler quick edit stalled both the command prompt output and the underlying task it was executing? Ok. I presumed quick edit to be a display only thing but I'm happy that is the complete answer.
    – KCD
    Sep 26, 2011 at 21:37

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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edit the settings on the command shell that you've opened up its been set to quick edit mode which you don't want in this case.

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  • In case that you disable quick-edit mode, just use Ctrl + m if you need to select something.
    – m3nda
    Aug 4, 2020 at 12:37
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I have seen this with Powershell several times when focus was removed from the Powershell window. Perhaps that's what's happening here as well? Every time it happened things would spring back to life after the window re-gained focus and I hit Enter.

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    Good to know it isn't just me but the bigger concern is how the batch file wasn't executing. Also how did you get the Enter key I haven't seen that in the comment formatting help?
    – KCD
    Sep 22, 2011 at 2:53
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    Hit "edit" under my answer, and you can see the markdown syntax.
    – EEAA
    Sep 22, 2011 at 2:55
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I changed the line where i call the program to:

start /hight <path-to-program> <params>

This means to start program in hight priority. It is much faster and it does not require you to press any keys during execution

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  • Can't edit 1 char. Please correct /hight to /high. Also, why would run a process in high priority change the select mode behavior?
    – m3nda
    Aug 4, 2020 at 12:19

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