Application startup performance problem with CreateProcess

Question

I see very different performance of a Windows application if launched from a command prompt window vs. started by a console app via CreateProcess.  The latter is very show to display the UI, even though the process appears in Task Manager "instantly" in both cases.  The application window displays immediately when launched from the command line, but literally can take seconds via CreateProcess.  Any suggestions?

This is seen on both Win7 32-bit & 64-bit.

Answer 1

What do you think cmd.exe calls when it wants to create a process? (hint: it's CreateProcess.)

You might be able to figure out some reason for the difference between how your application and cmd.exe behave with a debugger.