Running a .bat file using C# Process

Timbo87's suggestion is a good one since there's nothing else going on in the batch file.

The batch file will not run directly as you originally tried because it is not executable.  It needs the command shell to run.  One way to get the batch file to run is:

Process.Start("cmd.exe", "/C C:\\Inetpub\\myCmd.bat");

This will execute the batch file and then the console window will go away.  You can use /K rather than /C if you want the console to hang around and wait for a manual close.

Hi all,

    I tried Timbo's option and it is not working....now I am going to try D Richard's option.

  Thanks,

Hey,
 
      I tried D Richard's option too and that is not working either....do you know what can be the problem....??

       Please anybody help me...what my application does is the following.

      The command should start the process with After Effects application, which runs the script file provided in 'path2'. The script runs and creates a project and saves in the same C:\Inetpub directory.

      The script runs fine when ran directly with After Effects, either from File menu or from cmd.exe...only it doesnt run with my C# application... :(

      Please help me....

What error are you getting as either of the two options given should work?  Does it give you an error dialog of any sort?  Try putting a try/catch around it and see if that tells you anything.

try
{
  Process.Start(...);
}
catch (System.Exception ex)
{
  System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}

Hey Richard,

        It doesnt show me any error using either yours or Timbo's method.

       System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);     was giving me an error like Windows is not a namespace in system,eventhough i checked it is!!  so I did a Response.Write(ex.ToString()) and it returned without any error.

        And either of your method doesnt create the .bat file it just opens up cmd.exe in the TaskManager. using my above code it creates the batch file correctly but doesnt run it thereafter.. :(

       is there any other way....something like activexobject or something???? or why is it not working :(

 Please help me.........anybody :(

You say "And either of your method doesnt create the .bat file".  That is correct as in Timbo86's solution you don't need it and I assumed that since you already have that code I didn't need to include it again.  Since you see the cmd.exe process start, you should make sure that the batch file exists before you start - put a breakpoint in your code at the Process.Start call and then go check your filesystem to make sure the batch file is there.

Also, since you are using ASP.NET (I assume so since you could do a Response.Write) you do not have access to System.Windows.  Also, the command console will not appear on the screen when you do the Process.Start, so you should not use the /K option.

   I am checking the directory where the bat file is suppose to be created, but it is not there that is why I said it doesnt create the batch file also...now what?

I'd look at these lines:

           string filepath2 = strArray[2] + "\\myCmd.bat";
       
          StreamWriter swrr = File.CreateText(filepath2);

           swrr.WriteLine("\"C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\After Effects 6.5\\Support Files\\afterfx.exe\" -r "+path2);
               swrr.Close();

and check 'strArray[2]' and 'path2' to be sure they have valid values.  Based on the fact the Timbo87's solution also did not work for you, my suspicion is that the value of 'path2' is not what you expect.  Other than that, I cut-and-pasted this code into a program of my own and it created the bat file no problem.  Of course I did not use strArray[2] or 'path2' they are not defined in this code snippet, so those are the two potential problems.

Also, as I look at your code, you build the bat file path from strArray[2] in the first line, but then you hard-code 'C:\Inetpub\' in the process call.  If you stick with the cmd.exe invocation, you should use the 'filepath2' variable in the process start call to maintain consistency.

    Process.Start("cmd.exe", "/C " + filepath2);

or

    string params = "/C" + filepath2;
    Process.Start("cmd.exe", params);

ok let me try that richard...

ok richard,

     i see some ray of hope. this time the batch file was created and also i could see AfterFX.exe running in my taskmanager. but it didnt take the argument file and run it to make a project...

     

OK, very close then.  This still points to 'path2' being incorrect.  Can you look at 'path2' in the debugger and see if its value is what you expect?  Also, does the batch file look as you expect?

   When I do a Response.write on path2 and filepath2, they both are correct and below is what my myCmd.bat looks like with path2 being C:\test\MyCopy.jsx which is correct.

  "C:\Program Files\Adobe\After Effects 6.5\Support Files\afterfx.exe" -r C:\test\MyCopy.jsx


    and also when I double-click on the bat file that is created at C:\test then it runs the script which again opens AfterFX.exe with script and saves the desired project. All the things that this line HAS to do.

    so basically it is not taking the argument part of the batch file.

    Do you think the batch file executes only the things withing double-quotes...
 
   should i embed the argument part also in the double quote so that my bat file looks like this

      ""C:\Program Files\Adobe\After Effects 6.5\Support Files\afterfx.exe" -r C:\test\MyCopy.jsx"

     ????
 

       

ok,

   i tried the second option which didnt work. i also tried the below thing which didnt work either...

   "C:\Program Files\Adobe\After Effects 6.5\Support Files\afterfx.exe" "-r C:\test\MyCopy.jsx"

  PS: I have changed my dir to C:\test instead of C:\Inetpub...i was thinking it is a asp.net dir so something going wrong becoz of that but alas..... not ...:(

Hi Richard,

      You are correct. the batch file runs file manually but will not run partially( only the command line part, as it opens up afterfx.exe) through the C# script.

      I tried the code above but it doesnt create any output.txt file.

      When the script is run manually, yes afterfx opens up windows while it runs. and yes the console window does not appear as it runs afterfx.exe, it can be only seen in the Task Manager.

      Please tell me if you have any other ideas.. though I am posting the same question with our conversation in ASP.NET discussion board also.

      Thank you so much Richard for going through all this with me. I am really grateful to you.

Hi,

    finally i have found a way.
 
     finally I have decided to use batch files and run it through a C# .cs file. So now I have a .cs file on the server that executes the batch files. basically i am using socket programming now.

    Thanks a lot.

Hey,
 I had tried to run a batch file from an aspx a long time ago, however some of the commands were not running properly (I think due to security permissions in .NET), so I decided to run every single line of code I had by itself.
Everything went well until one day I decided to add an extra executable command and ofcourse is not executing properly, can you send me a link or some example code that I can look at to see how you figure this out using socket programming.

Thanks,
Jorge

   I changed the design of my code again. So I am not using socked programming now.

   Now I have a server running on the IIS server machine, which monitors a folder. As soon as there are some files in the folder(which are the batch files I write out with my .aspx C# code, containing the commands i want to run), it will execute the files in the folder.

   Now regarding your problem. You know file I/O in C# so you can make batch files out of it and execute it using the following.
 

                                                                                                StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(file);
                                    string command = sr.ReadLine();

                                    ProcessStartInfo startinfo=null;
                                     Process proc=null;
      
                                    startinfo = new ProcessStartInfo();

                                     try{
                                    startinfo.FileName = "C:\\WINNT\\system32\\cmd.exe";
      
                                      startinfo.Arguments =  command;
                                      startinfo.UseShellExecute = false;
                                      startinfo.CreateNoWindow=false;
        
                                      proc = Process.Start(startinfo);
                                      proc.WaitForExit(60000);
                                      }catch(Exception ee)
                                      {
                                        Console.Write("OR Error is here: "+ee.ToString());
                                      }finally{
                                      proc.Close();
                                      proc=null;
                                      startinfo=null;
                                         }



   hope that this solves your problem..

 

Sounds dangerous.

   do you have any solution to this?