Question

How do I go about suppressing the command prompt of a c++ application using the mingw compiler AFTER the program has started.. -mwindows works great in the linker settings but I want to be able to toggle it whilst the program is running, is this possible at all?

I am using a text editor and command line so no IDE related answers please.

Answer 1

As far as I know: no, at least not with a single executable. When you open an application in a Windows based console, it will start an instance of conhost.exe in order to provide an environment to your command line application. The console host will run as long as your applications hasn’t exited.

It’s hard to determine in which circumstances you’ll need this behavior. But you could create two application – one which is a simple command line application, and one which has been compiled with -mwindows. The latter could call the first. After the first has exited the second will continue executing.

Note that this will leave the user bewildered, as it seems to him your application has stopped (as the console window has been closed) and a -mwindow compiled application doesn’t create any GUI elements.