title: Running background processes (especially rails) in powershell on windows 7
body: <p>How does one run a background process in powershell on windows 7? The answers here: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/185575/powershell-equivalent-of-bash-ampersand-for-forking-running-background-proces">Powershell equivalent of bash ampersand (&amp;) for forking/running background processes</a> refer to *-psjob commands which seem to no longer exist.</p>
  
  <p>I have found one other reference through google to psjob being missing, but no solutions.</p>
  
  <p>Edit: apparently the solution involves a command called start-job. </p>
  
  <p>UNFORTUNATELY it's not clear how to run a programme that takes parameters. I'm trying to run "rails server". When I just type <code>rails server</code> at the prompt, rails runs just fine, but it blocks my shell. I've tried various ways of invoking rails with the server argument, such as:</p>
  
  <pre><code>start-job -scriptblock {rails server}
  start-job -scriptblock {"rails server"}
  start-job -scriptblock {rails "server"}
  start-job -scriptblock {rails} -argumentlist server
  start-job -scriptblock {rails} -argumentlist "server"
  start-job -scriptblock {rails $args[0]} -argumentlist server
  start-job -scriptblock {rails $args[1]} -argumentlist server
  start-job -scriptblock {rails $args[0]} -argumentlist @("server")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>all to no avail</p>