ShellExecute and Wait???

At one point in my program, it is necessary to shell a document(of which I do not know the default program to launch it). To avoid this problem, I used the ShellExecute API command. The problem is now, for some reason the processid that is being returned is not successfully working with my code.

Code:

---

processid = ShellExecute(Me.hwnd, vbNullString, pathtofile, commandline, "C:\", vbNormalFocus)

processhandle = OpenProcess(SYNCHRONIZE, 0, processid)

---

This worked fine before with Shell. It stil returns a non-zero processid, but it no longer establishes a non-zero process handle. How do I fix this? Thank you very much for the help.
Joe

Give this a shot...

VB Code:

Private Declare Function GetExitCodeProcess Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hProcess As Long, lpExitCode As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long
Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
 
Private Const PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION = &H400 
 
 
Private Function ShellAndWait(PathName As String, Optional WS As VbAppWinStyle = vbMinimizedFocus) As Double
'
    Dim lhProcess As Long
    Dim lExitcode As Long
    Dim dProcessID As Double
'
    On Error GoTo errShellAndWait
 
    dProcessID = Shell(PathName, WS)
    lhProcess = OpenProcess(PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION, False, dProcessID)
    Do
        Call Sleep(50): DoEvents
        Call GetExitCodeProcess(lhProcess, lExitcode)
    Loop While (lExitcode = STILL_ACTIVE)
    CloseHandle (lhProcess)
    ShellAndWait = dProcessID
    
    Exit Function
 
errShellAndWait:
    If lhProcess <> 0 Then
        CloseHandle (lhProcess)
    End If
    ShellAndWait = dProcessID
End Function

It does not work with shell execute. I am not even shell executing a document(which could potentially cause a problem); I am executing an exe. Thanks for the suggestion.

Joe