Question: Is there a way to start up a mathematica front end (GUI) from a (Windows) command prompt and have it eval a notebook without further user action?

even though mathematica.exe takes the -run and -initfile options they dont work the same
as they do with math.exe. (-run ''<<file.m'' wants to open a file named ''<<file.m'' for example)

---

Thanks. The first answer looks promising, however I get 
FrontEndObject::notavail
A front end is not available

(per docs it is "UseFrontEnd" by the way.)

Perhaps a path issue, however even after setting $FrontEndLaunchCommand no joy..

Re: Initialization Cell -- that simple answer would seem to do exactly what I need excepting for the "do you want to run initialization.." nag box. If there is an option somplace to automatically start a kernel and run initialization cells that would be really useful to know.

I'm running 6.0 by the way.

Answer: 
Aha...!!

```
Needs["JLink`"]; 
$FrontEndLaunchCommand="C:\\Program Files\\Wolfram Research\\Mathematica\\6.0\\Mathematica.exe";
ConnectToFrontEnd[];
UseFrontEnd[Module[{}, ...

```

follow up..for completeness --- the above $FrontEndLaunchCommand causes the GUI to come up so you can observe the evaluation (What I wanted). The default is to run a front end in a background server mode, so you have acess to front end functions but cant see it run.
It is not the FrontEnd that does the evaluation but the Kernel. You can use [MathematicaScript](http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/ref/program/MathematicaScript.html) to automate it.