Question

I have a single instance VB 2010 application I know how to communicate with the next instances run through the StartupNextInstance application event.
The usual way of working with this is parsing command line arguments of the new instance and continue execution of the old instance.

What I would like to do is replace the running instance with the new one. Is there any way to do this other than disabling the single instance property ?

Answer 1

Define the mutex for your app

Public objMutex As Mutex
Public mutexID As String = "SINGLE_INSTANCE_APP_MUTEX_YOUR_APP"

Then check if it is running or not.

objMutex = New Mutex(False, mutexID)
If objMutex.WaitOne(0, False) = False Then
 ' If we get here we where already running
 Process.GetProcessById(oldInstancePID).Kill()
EndIf