ShellExecute from a Delphi service but the application must be visible

Hi.
I have many problem to run a .bat (with a 'start cmd /c myapplication.exe' ) from a service. I have try ShellExecute but i have myapplication.exe running in background and never appears. My appilcation.exe is an APPTYPE CONSOLE.

I have try:
ShellExecute(0, 'open', 'c:\mydir\my.bat', nil, nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL) ;
or similar but this don't work!

I know that is difficult to execute a visual application from a service.
Can someone help me?

Windows 10
RAD Studio 10.2

Thanks in advice.

Delphi

Last Comment

Andrea Matthiae

8/22/2022 - Mon

Abhishek Sharma

9/21/2018

1. Why are you not starting your program directly?
2. You can call bat file in cmd like:

ShellExecute(HInstance, PChar('open'), PChar('cmd'),
    PChar('/c "' + BatFile + '"'), PChar(ExtractFileDir(BatFile)), SW_SHOWNORMAL);

Open in new window

Andrea Matthiae

9/21/2018

ASKER

Hi Abhishek Sharma.

With your code the application start but is not visible; in the Windows Task Manager is in the "Backround Process list".

Abhishek Sharma

9/23/2018

Yet again, did you run that exe to see if it creates console and not free it?

Also, if you're opening it via CMD, "/c" starts it and exits, try after removing it.

Also, for running it directly, try this:

procedure ShellExecAndWait(sExe, sCommandLine, sWorkDir: string;
  Wait, Freeze: Boolean; Show: Boolean = True);
var
  exInfo: TShellExecuteInfo;
  Ph: DWORD;
  WorkDir: PChar;
begin
  if sWorkDir = '' then
    WorkDir := nil
  else
    WorkDir := PChar(WorkDir);
  FillChar(exInfo, sizeof(exInfo), 0);
  with exInfo do
  begin
    cbSize := sizeof(exInfo);
    fMask := SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS or SEE_MASK_FLAG_DDEWAIT;
    Wnd := GetActiveWindow();
    exInfo.lpVerb := 'open';
    exInfo.lpParameters := PChar(sCommandLine);
    lpFile := PChar(sExe);
    lpDirectory := WorkDir;
    nShow := SW_SHOW;
  end;
  if ShellExecuteEx(@exInfo) then
    Ph := exInfo.hProcess
  else
  begin
    exit;
  end;
  if Wait then
    while WaitForSingleObject(exInfo.hProcess, 0) <> WAIT_OBJECT_0 do
    begin
      if Freeze = false then
        Sleep(1);
    end;
  CloseHandle(Ph);
end;