How to run two instances of Skype at a time.

Sometimes we have such a need to use two Skype accounts, for example, you may have a personal and a business account that you want to keep separate. By default, Skype can be run only once. Attempting to start it a second time fails.

However, we can cleverly avoid this problem by doing a simple trick using the CMD console. Ultimately, this will create a simple script that can save you on your desktop to use it when needed.

How does it work?   - (This Example for Windows XP)

1. The manual version
Click to menu start -> run and write

cmd
                      

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After issuing this command will open a CMD console on which type the following command to navigate to the folder where Skype is installed on your computer:

cd c:\program files\skype\phone
                      

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And run second Skype:

skype.exe /secondary
                      

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After entering the above command will launch the second window we have Skype, we can now log into a second account, and we can close the console window. It is no longer needed for the purposes of this trick.

2. Scripting it with a batch file
To make your life easier, you will now create a script to run the second instance of Skype. Once completed, put a shortcut on the desktop so we can launch the script to start the secondary Skype instance.

Open notepad and write:

cd c:\program files\skype\phone
                      startinfo.wShowWindow := SW_HIDE;
                      start skype.exe /secondary
                      

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and save on desktop as 2skype.bat

You have probably noticed that this batch file is a little different from the first three lines of code we executed in the command shell. Those lines cause us to have to manually close the CMD window when you open Skype. Here we use a bit of code that changed after inclusion of Skype will automatically close the console window.

I hope that someone like this tutorial useful. Please feel free to add comments or ask questions below.