Best way to run external program?

[david]

I have a simple csharp form with a 'Go' button on it. This event
launches a external exe successfully but the form color becomes white
and does not repaint while that external program runs, usually about 10
seconds.

I tried creating a thread in seperate class to run that process instead
on running it from main thread. This successfully keeps my form from
becoming distorted. However, I do not have any control over when that
thread finshes or a way to notify the form that it finsished.

Is there a way to run this thread and have the main thread wait until
thread completes before main thread continues to process?

Is there a way to have the thread which runs the external exe and
notify or poke the form to say, hey I've finshed running the exe with
this error code for example?

Perhaps I am approaching this all wrong, any suggestions on how to
approach this in a better way?

Thanks in advance.

Rookie csharp guy

[Neno Loje [MVP C#]]

Hi David,

you could call back from the second thread to the main thread (where your
form is beeing displayed) with the ThreadPool.Queu eUserWorkItem method:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...kitemtopic.asp

If you just want your form to repaint normally and do not need the user
interacting with your form (clicking buttons etc.) you could just use
Application.DoE vents like this:

<code>
using System.Diagnost ics;
using System.Windows. Forms;

Process p = Process.Start(" notepad.exe");
while (!p.HasExited)

{

System.Windows. Forms.Applicati on.DoEvents();

}

</code>

Regards,
--
Neno Loje [MVP C#]
http://www.dotnet-online.com

<da***@guenthne rs.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:11******** **************@ f14g2000cwb.goo glegroups.com.. .

I have a simple csharp form with a 'Go' button on it. This event
launches a external exe successfully but the form color becomes white
and does not repaint while that external program runs, usually about 10
seconds.

I tried creating a thread in seperate class to run that process instead
on running it from main thread. This successfully keeps my form from
becoming distorted. However, I do not have any control over when that
thread finshes or a way to notify the form that it finsished.

Is there a way to run this thread and have the main thread wait until
thread completes before main thread continues to process?

Is there a way to have the thread which runs the external exe and
notify or poke the form to say, hey I've finshed running the exe with
this error code for example?

Perhaps I am approaching this all wrong, any suggestions on how to
approach this in a better way?

Thanks in advance.

Rookie csharp guy