Question

I have read that Win32 will not allow remote invocation of a process that is interactive and I suspect a Console Application is considered to be interactive by Windows and so instead, if I could convert the following code in to a batch file then I am hoping I can remotely run the batch file on the server computer from a client. Feel free to correct this logic if I’m wrong.

The code is:

namespace PRIMEWebFlyControl
{
  class Program
  {

    // name of the process we will retrieve a handle to
    private const string PROCESS_NAME = "PRIMEPipeLine";
    private static Process ProgramHandle;
    private static string command;

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        //Console.WriteLine("This program has been launched remotely!");
        TextReader tr = new StreamReader("C:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\PRIMEWeb\\Executables\\FlyCommand.txt");
        command = tr.ReadLine();
        tr.Close();

        ExecuteCommand();
    }

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr handle);

    private static void ExecuteCommand() {
        if (AssignProcessHandle()) {
            IntPtr p = ProgramHandle.MainWindowHandle;
            SetForegroundWindow(p);
            SendKeys.SendWait(command + "~"); // "~" is equivalent to pressing Enter
        }
    }



    private static bool AssignProcessHandle()
    {
        // ask the system for all processes that match the name we are looking for
        Process[] matchingProcesses = Process.GetProcessesByName(PROCESS_NAME);
        // if none are returned then we haven't found the program so return false;
        if (matchingProcesses.Length == 0) return false;
        // else, set our reference to the running program
        ProgramHandle = matchingProcesses[0];

        // return true to indicate we have assigned the ref sucessfully
        return true;
    }

}
}

As you will notice the code contains method calls of Windows library methods like SetForegroundWindow() and as I am unfamiliar with batch files, I wondered how the same thing might be achieved.

Many thanks

Answer 1

If I understand well, you are looking for a command line that will execute a bunch of commands that exist inside a text file named (C:\inetpub\wwwroot\PRIMEWeb\Executables\FlyCommand.txt)

Here is what you need to do:

cmd < C:\inetpub\wwwroot\PRIMEWeb\Executables\FlyCommand.txt

In case the path contains spaces, use the following command:

cmd < "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\PRIMEWeb\Executables\FlyCommand.txt"