[h-e-w] problem with dired and "start" command

[Michael W Daniels]

Under windows 98, I could use the "X" command in dired (run shell command 
on file) and type "start" to simulate the effect of double-clicking on the 
file's icon in explorer -- the same effect of actually typing "start 
filename" at a command prompt. Once I upgraded to win XP, this stopped 
working. Instead, I just get a command prompt with the filename as the 
window's title.

As it turns out, this is because win XP's start command interprets anything 
in quotation marks as the suggested window title, and emacs puts the 
filename in quotation marks when constructing the shell command. In other 
words, hitting "X" and then typing "start" while file.txt is selected 
yields the command line

start "file.txt"

What do I need to change so that it generates

start file.txt

instead?

(Alternatively, is there a way to create a keystroke command in dired that 
would use the win32 API ShellExecute to do the same thing?)
--
Michael W. Daniels        | Choreography is its own reward.
address@hidden      | Some things are done only for the sake
Department of Linguistics | of form. Don't fight it by looking for
218 Oxley Hall            | substance in everything.