How to create a Process that outlives its parent

Question

I\'m trying to launch an external updater application for a platform that I\'ve developed. The reason I\'d like to launch this updater is because my configuration utility w

Answer 1

It seems that the problem you are seeing has a different reason because the Process class will not kill any processes started using Process.Start when your application exits.

See this simple sample program, the calculator will stay open:

using System.Diagnostics;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Process.Start(@"C:\windows\system32\calc.exe");
    }
}

Answer 2

There's no reason why a process started with Process.Start should automatically die when the launcher exits. My guess is that you're doing something odd in the updater.

I've written an updater doing exactly this kind of thing before, and it's been fine.

For example:

Launcher.cs:

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;

class Launcher
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Launching launchee");
        Process.Start("Launchee.exe");
        Console.WriteLine("Launched. Exiting");
    }
}

Launchee.cs:

using System;
using System.Threading;

class Launchee
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("       I've been launched!");
        Thread.Sleep(5000);
        Console.WriteLine("       Exiting...");
    }
}

Compile both of them, separately, and run Launcher.exe. The "launchee" process definitely lasts longer than the launcher.

Answer 3

Just a thought from my foggy memory, but I seem to remember having a discussion a while back that when the Process.Start method is called from Form that the spawned process has some sort of dependency (not sure what, why or how, memory is a bit foggy).

To deal with it, a flag was set that was actually called from the Main() method of the application after the main form/app exited and that if the process was launched from the Main() method, eveything worked out just fine.

Just a thought, like I said, this is purely from memory, but some of the examples posted here all being called from the Main() method of a console app seemed to jog something.

Hope all works out well for you.