ShellExecuteEx crashes in Excel VBA

Question

Since Windows updates occurred, an API call to ShellExecuteEx(sExecuteInfo) crashes, saying:

unhandled exception at 0x75F7A529 (shell32.d

Answer 1

Use way recommended by Microsoft.

MSDN article "Determine When a Shelled Process Ends" recommends approach through different API call and I can confirm it is working reliably. I'm posting code module (adopted from code in the article) here.

The following VBA module uses API call CreateProcessA(), waits for application to finish and returns ERRORLEVEL code as result:

Option Explicit

Private Type STARTUPINFO
  cb As Long
  lpReserved As String
  lpDesktop As String
  lpTitle As String
  dwX As Long
  dwY As Long
  dwXSize As Long
  dwYSize As Long
  dwXCountChars As Long
  dwYCountChars As Long
  dwFillAttribute As Long
  dwFlags As Long
  wShowWindow As Integer
  cbReserved2 As Integer
  lpReserved2 As Long
  hStdInput As Long
  hStdOutput As Long
  hStdError As Long
End Type

Private Type PROCESS_INFORMATION
  hProcess As Long
  hThread As Long
  dwProcessID As Long
  dwThreadID As Long
End Type

Private Declare Function WaitForSingleObject Lib "kernel32" (ByVal _
  hHandle As Long, ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function CreateProcessA Lib "kernel32" (ByVal _
  lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpCommandLine As String, ByVal _
  lpProcessAttributes As Long, ByVal lpThreadAttributes As Long, _
  ByVal bInheritHandles As Long, ByVal dwCreationFlags As Long, _
  ByVal lpEnvironment As Long, ByVal lpCurrentDirectory As String, _
  lpStartupInfo As STARTUPINFO, lpProcessInformation As _
  PROCESS_INFORMATION) As Long

Private Declare Function CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" _
  (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function GetExitCodeProcess Lib "kernel32" _
  (ByVal hProcess As Long, lpExitCode As Long) As Long

Private Const NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS = &H20&
Private Const INFINITE = -1&

Public Function ExecCmd(CommandLine As String) As Long
  Dim proc As PROCESS_INFORMATION
  Dim Start As STARTUPINFO
  Dim ret As Long

  ' Initialize the STARTUPINFO structure:
  Start.cb = Len(Start)

  ' Start the shelled application:
  ret& = CreateProcessA(vbNullString, CommandLine, 0&, 0&, 1&, _
     NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, 0&, vbNullString, Start, proc)

  ' Wait for the shelled application to finish:
     ret& = WaitForSingleObject(proc.hProcess, INFINITE)
     Call GetExitCodeProcess(proc.hProcess, ret&)
     Call CloseHandle(proc.hThread)
     Call CloseHandle(proc.hProcess)
     ExecCmd = ret&
End Function

If you store all the code as for example ShellExecModule, then you can call it as

Dim errorLevelValue As Long
errorLevelValue = ShellExecModule.ExecCmd(CommandLine)