Thread: Close Applications from C program...

Hi,

I want to open and close an .exe file (e.g; Notepad.exe) from a C program... I can open it using

Code:

system(".exe path");

But I don't know how to close the application from the program... Any ideas?

Thanks,
- Manu

(Hinted Windows as OS)

How To Terminate an Application "Cleanly" in Win32

You should also check out:

::CreateProcess(..)
::PostThreadMessage(..)

To start up and post a WM_CLOSE message respectively.

For UNIX Environmet...

You can fork() and then exec() (one of the exec family dunctions i mean). The control flow of the child goes to the called program. The process exits when the child terminates...

Thank you!

It almost worked, except that I have another problem:

Code:

#include <stdio.h> 
int main() { 
system("C://WINNT//NOTEPAD.EXE"); 
system("taskkill /F /IM notepad.exe"); 
}

These commands, when they are individually called from the command prompt, they are able to open and close the applications (like this notepad.exe)... But if I use it as the above program, the program block as soon as the "notepad" is opened. The control is not handed back to the program's next line until notepad is closed (for which I wrote the next line!)

Can you tell me how do I prevent this? Or, are there any workarounds?
Is there anything equivalent to fork() in Windows?

I appreciate you help!
-Manu

What about

Code:

#include<process.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
#include<stdio.h>

void start();
void end();

int main()
{
    _beginthread( start, 0, NULL );  // open notepad
    sleep( 1000 );    //pause for 1 sec
    _beginthread( end, 0, NULL ); // kill start end() thread.

    
    system( "PAUSE" );
    return 0;
}

void start()
{
     system( "notepad" );
}

void end()
{
          system("taskkill /F /IM notepad.exe"); 
 }

Thanks a lot guys... It worked finally....

I had probelms executing even the small statement: _beginthread... Later I found out that I need to specify "multi-threading" options to the compiler while compiling this program...

I am still facing problems with the sleep() method... Any better functions to suspend the execution for a while and then resuming it?

Thanks a lot,
-Manu

The error is while linking:

Code:

Error:
Thread_Run_Tests.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _sleep
Debug/Thread_Run_Tests.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals

This was similar to the error I got for _beginthread()... I specified the "multi-threading" option for compiling, and it got solved... I'm still not able to figure the problem with sleep()

Thanks a lot for the good responses, guys
- Manu

Same problem

Code:

Linking...
Thread_Run_Tests.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _Sleep
Debug/Thread_Run_Tests.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals
Error executing link.exe.