[VB2010] Start, Stop and Detect the closing of an external application (process)

[akhileshbc]

Hi guys...

I was trying to find a way to detect the starting and stopping of an external application. So, I did a quick search and found the solution from here itself.

And I think, it would be better to post it here so that others could also make use of it.

Public Class Form1
    Dim myProcess As Process    '~~~ Our object that references the process we want to start
 
    '~~~ Start
    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        myProcess = New Process                         '~~~ Creating the object
        myProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "notepad.exe"    '~~~ We are going to start notepad.
        myProcess.Start()                               '~~~ Start it
 
        myProcess.EnableRaisingEvents = True            '~~~ Need to be TRUE, inorder to notify us when the process is closed by the user in some other means (like Alt + F4)
        AddHandler myProcess.Exited, AddressOf ProcessExited    '~~~ When the process is exited, the sub "ProcessExited" will be called
    End Sub
 
    '~~~ Stop
    Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
        If myProcess IsNot Nothing Then             '~~~ Check if we have started the process or not
            If myProcess.HasExited = False Then     '~~~ Check if the process is already exited or not
                myProcess.CloseMainWindow()         '~~~ If not, try to close it
 
                myProcess.WaitForExit(1000)         '~~~ Wait for 1000 millisecconds allowing it to close
 
                If myProcess.HasExited = False Then '~~~ If the process haven't closed yet (even after waiting), then we are going to force it to close
                    myProcess.Kill()
                End If
            End If
        End If
    End Sub
 
    '~~~ This is the sub which will be called when the Process is closed. Whatever we want to do (when the process is closed), has to be included in this sub
    Private Sub ProcessExited(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
        MessageBox.Show("Hey dude, you were using this program for XX minutes ! Oh man !!! You are so addicted to this program...! You closed the program at: " & myProcess.ExitTime)
 
        myProcess.Close()   '~~~ Freeup the object
    End Sub
End Class

Hope this helps...

Starting of the application will be done through our program. And when the user closes the program, it would notify you.

Thanks to:

• Atheist
• nmadd