How to close/stop a .NET application and re-execute it? - vb.net

My application updates(running a vba script) an excel shared workbook, and since it is shared, there shouldn't be problems when someone else is using the same file at the same time. But for some reason, sometimes it simply freezes, without any error message, just freezes.
Is there a way to programatically make the application stops/closes automatically when frozen or after some minutes(In normal conditions, this updating process shouldn't take more than 1 minute)?
And, if possible, re-launch the app again automatically after some minutes for at least 5 attempts?
This way would ensure process completes succesfully.

I have had to do this same thing before but because I had an application that would look for updates to it's self on the network and then update it locally. Problem is, you cannot update the exe that is running.
What I did to get around it is to create another program that would wait a second, update the exe, then run the exe again.
Because I did this with a few different apps, I made my "Updater" generic so I could send some command line parameters and it would use those to copy and run.
If you want to try something else, you might be able to accomplish this same thing by creating a BAT file and running it. I'm not real good on BAT files so I can't help you there. But, it is another way to handle it.

Related

Changes doesn't reflect on run time (code and design)

Im developing a system using vb2022 its almost done but today the changes I made doesn't reflect on run time.
For example I added a button but when I run the program the button will not show.
Same as the code, i can write code but it doesnt reflect on run time
Plus im trying to change the startup form into form 2 (initial is form 1) but it doesn't reflect.
What should I do? I didn't change anything I just opened the file and write code. But suddenly this happened.
Most likely your build is failing and VS is automatically running the old output. When that happens, VS will prompt you whether to run the old output or not by default, but many people tell VS not to prompt them again without actually reading the dialogue. Use the Build menu to build your project/solution and pay attention to the Output and Error List windows to see whether it failed or not.
It may be that the compilation is succeeding but VS simply can't overwrite the output files because they are locked, which does happen sometimes. In that case, just delete the entire obj and bin folders from your project folder. You may need to close VS to do so. The next time you build, new output will be created and run.
If this happens regularly then you should probably repair VS and, if it continues after that, reinstall.

How allow only one python code process to run if same is executed at the same time

if I have two or more running python console applications at the same time of same application, but executed several times by hand or any other way.
Is there any method from python code itself to stop all extra processes, close console window and keep running only one
The solution I would use would be to have a lockfile created in the tmp directory.
The first instance would start, check for the existence of the file, create the file since it is not there, then run; the following instances will start, check for the existence of the file, then quit since it's there. The original instance would remove the lockfile as its last instruction. NOTE: If the app runs into an error and does not execute the instruction to remove the lockfile, you would need to manually remove it else the app will always see the file.
I've seen on other threads that some suggest using the ps command and look for your app's name, which would work; however, if your app will ever run on Windows, you would need to use tasklist.

Creating an updater; replacing files that are in use?

I am trying to create an updater for a screenshot application I have.
I've done the main part of downloading the update, but I now need to find a way to rename the new file the same as the existing one -
e.g. "NewFile.exe" > "ScreenshotApp.exe".
Also, I don't want to add another .exe solely for updating, just for the purpose of keeping it light and portable.
Is there any way of renaming a file that's in use?
Perhaps telling Windows to rename it AS SOON AS the application has closed itself?
Option 1:
Have launcher which most likely you want update that will handle updating your application as well as launching.
Option 2:
Have external exe monitoring updates and updating your app.
Option 3:
Cretate batch file that will update your app whenever your done using it.
Option 3 is the one you are looking for but it is the worst. If anything goes wrong the app wont work and if user can live without it, they wont reinstall.
Option 2 is mostly used by bigger players. They either work all the time or are scheduled.
I would do option 3, it is much easier than you think, and if you want single exe, just make your app a dll, you can update it whenever you want but launcher will stay the same. That way you can handle any errors, and fix them if there is need for it.
Option 4 would be to run installer with fresh update that will close app install update. That solution is better to buy. For $250 you can get neat stuff where it would take you a lot man hours to o something even remotely close.

How to implement a system wide text replacement in windows programmatically?

I have a small VB .Net application that, among other things, attempts to substitute system wide typed text by the user(hotstrings concept). To achieve that, I have deployed 'ahk2exe' and 'AutoHotkeySC.bin' with my application and did the following:
When a user assignes a new 'hotstring':
Kill 'hotstring' exe script file if running
Append new hotstring to the script file (if non exist then create a new one)
Convert edited/new script file to exe (using ahk2exe)
Run the newly converted script exe
(somewhere there I also check if the hotstring has been already assigned)
However, I am not totally satisfied with this method for the following two main reasons:
The extra resources deployed with the application.
Lag: The time it takes for the system to kill the process and then restart it takes a minimum of 5 seconds on my fast computer and more on other computers. That amount of time is much more than the time it takes the user to assign the hotstring, minimize/close the window and then test his/her new hotstring. When the user does so initially with no success they will think the process failed. So this method is not very good for user experience.
So, I am looking for a different method or implementation. May be using keyboard hooks? Or maybe adding a .dll library that achieves the same. Are there any resources you know about that might help (free or commercial)? What is the best way to achieve my desired goal?
Many thanks for your help.
Implementing what Autohotkey does would be a pretty non trivial task.
But I'm pretty sure that AHK supports an "autoreload" option for scripts
googling "autohotkey auto reload" turned up several pages discussing that very concept. IF that worked, all you'd have to do is update the script file and that's it, AHK should automatically reload the script.

How to allow users to quit out of long-running VBA tasks?

I have a routine that examines thousands of records looking for discrepancies. This can take upwards of 5 minutes to complete and although I provide a progress bar and elapsed time count, I'm not sure I want to encourage folk pressing ctrl-break to quit the report should it be taking longer than expected.
A button in the progress bar won't work as the form is non-modal, so is there any neat way of allowing users to quit in this situation?
You need DoEvents and a variable whose scope is greater than the scope of what you're running. That is, if it's just a procedure, you need a module level variable. If it's more than one module, you need a global variable. See here
Stopwatch at DDoE
Normally, the VB engine will tie up the processor until it's done. With DoEvents, however, VB allows the processor to work on whatever is next in the queue, then return to VB.
I don't think there is a way to do it like you would want it to work. VBA is a scripting language so when you start your procedure, it's gonna run until it's done. If you had another button somewhere that even WOULD let you click it while the original procedure was running, I'm not sure how you would reference that procedure and stop it.
You could do something like ask the user if they want to contine, but that would make it run even longer.
Also you could have your procedure check for a condition outside of Excel and keep running as long as it's true. Something easy might be check if a certain text file is in a folder. If you wanted the procedure to stop, open the folder and move the file. On your loop's next iteration, it wouldn't see the file and stop running. Cludgy, inefficient, and not elegant, but it would work. You could also have it check a cell, checkbox, radiobutton, basically any control in another Excel sheet running in another instance of Excel. Again cludgy.
CTRL+Break works. Accept it and move on. One neat trick about that though, is that if you password protect your code and they hit CTRL+Break, the debug option is unavailable and they will only get Continue or End.
If this is code that is run frequently, have you considered scripting something that runs it during times when a human is not using the computer? I used to run telnet screen scraping macros that would take hours to go through our widgets, but I always had them run either on a separate computer or when I wasn't there (nights/weekends).