Starting non-Office Application

[mikeymay]

I want to be able to start a non-Office application via code in a macro.

Any pointers on hwo to do this?


Cheers

[DKenny]

Depends - What application is it?

[mikeymay]

It's not an 'off the shelf' package and it non-windows based.

I thinks it's on a UNIX platform???? and have been told it's on an AS400 mainframe.

Does this help?

[DKenny]

It helps in that it tells me I'm out of my depth here. Sorry :(

[mikeymay]

The start up file is an .edp file if it helps

[salvelinus]

The Shell command is commonly used to start most non-office programs, but I think it has to be a Windows app.
It's been a few years, but I don't think the AS400 runs on Unix; I think IBM has it's own language for it. At any rate, Unix & AS400 were separate classes.

[RobDog888]

Here is an example of using the ShellExecute API to do a reliable shelling of most any app.
Option Explicit

Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, _
ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal lpParameters As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long

Private Const SW_SHOWNORMAL As Long = 1
Private Const SW_SHOWMINIMIZED As Long = 2
Private Const SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED As Long = 3

Private Sub Command1_Click()
On Error GoTo MyError
Dim lRet As Long
lRet = ShellExecute(Me.hwnd, "Open", "C:\MyExe.edp", vbNullString, "C:\", SW_SHOWNORMAL)
If lRet <= 32 Then
MsgBox "Error Shelling"
End If
Exit Sub
MyError:
MsgBox Err.Number & " - " & Err.Description
End Sub