Thomas, Thanks for the tip. I hadn't known about '/usr/X11R6/bin/run.exe'.
Now that I am aware of it, I'm not finding much documentation about it. However, it does improve upon my offering by simplifying it. As you suggested, I can eliminate the VBScript and replace the target in my shortcut by C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\run.exe /XFree86xterm.bat where '/XFree86xterm.bat' points to the DOS script I described earlier. The new procedure is simpler and works just as well. A minor drawback to both procedures is that one cannot take advantage of Windows' facility to position new windows to avoid complete overlap. I suppose it's being applied to the non-existent Command prompt window rather than the 'xterm'. john