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check for process end to close splashscreen

I have a winform app in C# with has to create an SQLLocalDB instance at first run.
I saw that this process was taking some time in some older PC´s and some users thought that the app had crashed.
I created a splashscreen form that lets the user know that the app is creating the instance but i dont know how i cant check when the process has ended and close the splashscreen.
I have a class with the following code to create the instance:
static private void ExecCmdInstance()
{
System.Diagnostics.Process process = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo();
startInfo.WindowStyle = System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
startInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
startInfo.Arguments = "/c sqllocaldb create MSSQLLocalDB -s";
process.StartInfo = startInfo;
process.Start();
}
Can anyone point me in the right direction please?
Thanks in advance.

You could use:
process.WaitForExit();
But be aware that it will block your gui thread. You might start the process on a different thread, so your gui isn't blocked.

Running a cmd command from within my C# code

I'm currently hosting OSRM locally on my machine to build a routing application. When the application starts, a bool ServiceAvailable is checked with a test query to see if the application is available and running locally. I want to be able to start the OSRM application should this bool return false. I found a StackOverflow link with a similar issue and tried to implement it, but the application doesn't load. Here's my current code:
private void StartOSRMService()
{
Process process = new Process();
process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = #"C:\";
process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
process.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
process.StartInfo.Arguments = "/c cd users/james/desktop/osrm/osrm-backend/osrm_release";
process.StartInfo.Arguments = "/c osrm-routed wales-latest.osrm";
}
The method is ran but the service never starts. In other methods, my code breaks due to a Http.Web request error, due to the lack of the service.

You can try the following:
private void StartOSRMService()
{
var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(#"C:\users\james\desktop\osrm\osrm-backend\osrm_release\osrm-routed.exe");
startInfo.WorkingDirectory = #"C:\users\james\desktop\osrm\osrm-backend\osrm_release";
startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
startInfo.Arguments = "wales-latest.osrm";
Process.Start(startInfo);
}
More info on Process.Start()
Also, based on your original StartInfo.Arguments, the "/C" tells to console to terminate after the command has been executed, thus, if the "osrm-routed" is the service that needs to run in the console, and the console is terminated, then the application itself will also terminate when the console terminates.

How to close an external application using c#

Im trying to be close the calculator when the user press's a key on the key board. But p.kill and p.CloseMainWindow doesn't kill the calculator, only the shell which is executed.
Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd";
p.StartInfo.Arguments = "/c calc ";
p.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
p.Start();
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to kill Calc");
Console.ReadKey();
p.CloseMainWindow();
p.Kill();

Don't use the shell (cmd) but run the calc process directly. Setting Process.StartInfo.FileName to "calc" should do it (assuming calc.exe is on the system path).

You need to find the Calculator process and kill it. There are actually two processes created: one for the cmd and the other for Calculator. You are killing only the first one.
The other solution is to start the Calculator directly, without using cmd.

because your process is not the calc.exe process but the command prompt which executes the calc.
to find a process by name and kill it, you should use GetProcessByName,
see an example here: C# Process Process.GetProcessesByName, Kill Process and Exit Event

Why won't "cmd.exe /C command" end when called via Process.Start()?

I'm trying to run a command via command prompt from an ASP.Net web application. I can see the process start in task manager on the web server, however the process just sits there and never exits nor does it run the commands I specified.
Process process = new Process();
ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
startInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
startInfo.Arguments = "/C " +command;
startInfo.UserName = "myuser";
startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
startInfo.Domain = "mydomain";
startInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
String pass = "mypass";
System.Security.SecureString secPass = new System.Security.SecureString();
foreach (char c in pass.ToCharArray())
{
secPass.AppendChar(c);
}
secPass.MakeReadOnly();
startInfo.Password = secPass;
process.StartInfo = startInfo;
process.Start();
//output = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
process.WaitForExit();
process.Close();
I've tried both with and without reading the standard output.
The application will hang on process.WaitForExit(); until I kill the process via task manager.

I think we need to understand what commands you are actually trying to process in order to determine what's going on. Also we need to know what OS the server is running.
For example, I did see in your comments where you tried "echo test > C:\test.txt" Under Windows Server 2008 (and Windows 7) the root directory requires administrator permissions in order to create files. If this is executing under IIS, my guess is that your IIS user isn't an administrator and you are getting security exceptions.
Also, a number of commands may require elevated priviledges due to UAC. I don't remember exactly, but I'm guessing that if those commands are being caught by UAC then the process is waiting for UAC confirmation... Which I believe you cannot supply via a command line.
This type of problem won't be seen if you log into the machine and execute it directly... unless you are logging in with the worker process user account.
So, the very first thing you need to do is figure out what it is you are trying to run and see if the user the worker process is executing under can even perform those actions. Security is there to protect you, so be careful about granting additional permissions to the user.
The reason why it might work on one machine versus another again depends on the OS's those machines are running and the configuration of the user the commands are executing under.
If this is truly a security issue, as I suspect, then you should post a question on serverfault.com to ask what permission sets you need to execute various commands under your worker process user.
You might look at the machines event logs to see if there were any warnings or errors thrown about the command. Sometimes things like this can show up there to give you a bit more information as to what happened.

Once passed to CMD, the control has passed to the shell. It's better to add a close it like this:
private void closeSubProcess()
{
Process[] currentProcesses = Process.GetProcesses();
foreach (Process p in currentProcesses)
{
string s = p.ProcessName;
s = s.ToLower();
if (s.CompareTo("YOURPROGRAMNAMEHERE") == 0)
{
p.CloseMainWindow();
p.Close();
}
}
}

I am calling cmd.exe to start a node module in Windows. npm obviously must be installed first, along with the node module I need, and then I can call the module with args in C#. Problem was, the cmd.exe would not shut off, I'd have to use Task Mgr (just like this question!).
//This requires npm, and the module installed by npm...
ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo();
psi.FileName = "cmd.exe";
psi.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
psi.UseShellExecute = true; //closes command window
psi.Arguments = "/c <nodemodulename>" + file1 + ".txt " + file2 + ".log";
Process p = Process.Start(psi);
p.Close();
The /c argument was key to closing down cmd.exe. When I started out, I had put in the /K argument, which keeps the darned thing running. Solved. Hope this helps. (This is like ancient, but we always forget)

ProcessStartInfo.UseShellExecute = true and waiting for process exit

I want to use shell executable in order to respect user preferences of application to be started, but I also need to know when that particular application is closed.
Process editProcess = new Process();
ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
startInfo.FileName = filename;
startInfo.Verb = "edit";
startInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
editProcess.StartInfo = startInfo;
// start the default editor
editProcess.Start();
editProcess.WaitForExit();
WaitForExit seems to return when the shell process exits and not when the real process exits.
Is there a better way of knowing when started application is exited than manually parsing registry, finding correct application to start and explicitly start that app without shell execute?

Handle the process exited event:
editProcess.Exited += process_Exited;