Out of process DLL

[John Bailo]

I want to write an exe that references a dll.
At some point, i conditionally want the dll to shut down the exe and
continue running some methods.

Is that possible?

( I guess it would be like an old school out of process com activex
server).


--
The Texeme Construct, http://www.texeme.com
360, http://360.yahoo.com/manfrommars_43

[Paul Clement]

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 10:57:05 -0700, John Bailo <ja*****@texeme.com> wrote:

¤
¤ I want to write an exe that references a dll.
¤
¤
¤ At some point, i conditionally want the dll to shut down the exe and
¤ continue running some methods.
¤
¤ Is that possible?
¤
¤ ( I guess it would be like an old school out of process com activex
¤ server).

Unfortunately there is no equivalent to an ActiveX EXE in .NET, nor do DLLs run out of process.

Why not just create another EXE instead?
Paul
~~~~
Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)

[steve]

If you make the DLL a COM+ server component it will run out of process.

[John Bailo]

Paul Clement wrote:

Why not just create another EXE instead?
Interesting.

Can I reference a "exe" and it's methods from another exe (like a class
library)?

Paul Clement wrote: On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 10:57:05 -0700, John Bailo <ja*****@texeme.com> wrote:

¤
¤ I want to write an exe that references a dll.
¤
¤
¤ At some point, i conditionally want the dll to shut down the exe and
¤ continue running some methods.
¤
¤ Is that possible?
¤
¤ ( I guess it would be like an old school out of process com activex
¤ server).

Unfortunately there is no equivalent to an ActiveX EXE in .NET, nor do DLLs run out of process.



Paul
~~~~
Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)

[John Bailo]

steve wrote:

If you make the DLL a COM+ server component it will run out of process.

My eyes are glazing over...
Just kidding, I'd like to stay w/in the bounds of .NET

[Paul Clement]

On 29 Aug 2005 11:03:17 -0700, "steve" <st*******@hotmail.com> wrote:

¤ If you make the DLL a COM+ server component it will run out of process.

Yes, but it doesn't run unattended, so shutting down it's client will likely destroy the reference
to the DLLHost process.
Paul
~~~~
Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)

[Paul Clement]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 11:29:00 -0700, John Bailo <ja*****@texeme.com> wrote:

¤ Paul Clement wrote:
¤ > Why not just create another EXE instead?
¤
¤ Interesting.
¤
¤ Can I reference a "exe" and it's methods from another exe (like a class
¤ library)?
¤

No, but why do you need to do that?
Paul
~~~~
Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)

[John Bailo]

Paul Clement wrote:

No, but why do you need to do that?

I wand to build my own assembly updater.

A design:

Build a dll, that communicates with a web service to look up the current
version number.

Each of my exe's, when deployed, reference the dll, which uses the
..GetCallingAssembly method to find the version of the exe.

If they don't match, I need to shut down the exe (or in a more
sophisticated version, fill the existing memory space of the exe using
Reflection), copy the new assembly, and restart it.

At this point, the idea of replacing the existing copy in memory sounds
like a better solution, if I can

(a) do it
(b) persist the assembly to disk after replacing it in memory.


Paul
~~~~
Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)

[Ross Presser]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 11:29:00 -0700, John Bailo wrote:

Paul Clement wrote:

> Why not just create another EXE instead?

Interesting.

Can I reference a "exe" and it's methods from another exe (like a class
library)?

I don't see why not. But if not, why not move the necessary classes to a
DLL that both exes can reference.

[John Bailo]

Ross Presser wrote:

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 11:29:00 -0700, John Bailo wrote:

Paul Clement wrote:

> Why not just create another EXE instead?

Interesting.

Can I reference a "exe" and it's methods from another exe (like a class
library)?

I don't see why not. But if not, why not move the necessary classes to a
DLL that both exes can reference.

I see, so start another exe that performs the work.

Another poster described a loader that he launches first to do the check.

I'd rather have them run the app first, but then I could launch the
second exe that continues to process while the first shuts down.

Great idea(!)