Creating a background process in DOS

Creating a background process in Unix is trivial: put a trailing ampersand on the command.  But what about DOS (Windows)? Use the START command as explained in this article:  http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/391278

C:\>start notepad.exe
will start Notepad, and DOS prompt is available for next command

C:\>start /wait notepad.exe 
will start Notepad, and DOS prompt is not available until Notepad is closed.